Case Mountain
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Located in the southeastern section of
Manchester, Connecticut Manchester is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The town is part of the Capitol Planning Region, Connecticut, Capitol Planning Region. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the town had a total population of 59,713 ...
, the Case Mountain Recreational Area encompasses of combined open space and watershed land Town of Manchester Recreation stretching from the
Glastonbury Glastonbury ( , ) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town had a population of 8,932 in the 2011 census. Glastonbury is less than across the River ...
border north to Case Pond. Some trails lead south across the Glastonbury border to a larger area of land owned by the Town of Manchester to maintain the Buckingham Reservoir and provide drinking water to Manchester. The land around the reservoir is open to recreation. While there is a hill named Case Mountain in this area, locals refer to this entire trail system and forest in Manchester and Glastonbury simply as “Case Mountain.”


History

The Case family were prominent industrialists in Manchester where they operated a paper mill and water bottling facility. In 1861 Alfred Wells Case and his twin brother Albert Willard Case opened the Case Brothers Inc. paper mill in Highland Park where they produced washed cotton supplied to the Union Army during the Civil War. At the end of the war, the Case brothers began a specialized papermaking operation and soon became a leader in the manufacturing of pressboard, a strong paper product used as album board, shoe board, and binder board. They were true Connecticut Yankees that ran an efficient, innovative, highly skilled operation, and the company continued to flourish as the New England paper industry reached its peak. In 1878 the company won first prize for its pressed paper at the International Paris Exposition, competing with many European paper manufacturers, and achieved further success at the Melbourne Exhibition of 1880. Case Brothers Inc. remained a family business and continued success into the 1960s when it was acquired by Boise Cascade Corporation. The Case family owned a large amount of land in the southeastern section Manchester that is now the Case Mountain Recreational Area. They built a stone bridge across the west end of Case Pond, many stone walls, a chestnut log cabin, and a carriage path that loops from Spring Street to the top of Lookout Mountain and down to Case Pond.


Case Mountain Cabin

Members of the Case-Dennison family had a log cabin constructed on the property by
French-Canadian French Canadians, referred to as Canadiens mainly before the nineteenth century, are an ethnic group descended from French colonists first arriving in France's colony of Canada in 1608. The vast majority of French Canadians live in the prov ...
builders in 1917-1918, for use as a summer home. The cabin was built using
American chestnut The American chestnut (''Castanea dentata'') is a large, fast-growing deciduous tree of the Fagaceae, beech family native to eastern North America. As is true of all species in the genus ''Chestnut, Castanea'', the American chestnut produces Bur ...
trees from the property; a unique feature because American chestnuts were decimated by
blight Blight is a specific symptom affecting plants in response to infection by a pathogenic organism. Description Blight is a rapid and complete chlorosis, browning, then death of plant tissues such as leaves, branches, twigs, or floral organs. A ...
in the early 1900s. The cabin was used by the Case-Dennison family until 2005, and was purchased by the town of
Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...
in 2006. After being unoccupied for several years, it fell into disrepair and was slated for demolition until a local conservation group leased the cabin from the town and began rehabilitation efforts in 2024. File:Case Mountain Cabin Main Entrance November 2024.jpg, Cabin main entrance (November 2024) File:Case Mountain Cabin Interior with Lit Fireplace November 2024.jpg, Cabin interior with working fireplace (November 2024) File:Case Mountain Cabin Exterior Side and Porch November 2024.jpg, Cabin exterior and porch (November 2024)


Trails

Case Mountain has a vast trail network for hiking and mountain biking, maintained by Manchester Conservation Commission and the Connecticut Forest and Park Association. The terrain is very rocky and hilly, making for somewhat difficult hiking and challenging mountain biking. Bring a trail map and good footwear. The carriage path, a wide smooth gravel trail with white markings, leads visitors from the Spring Street parking area to the summit of Lookout Mountain (elev. 744 ft) and loops around to Case Pond. Visitors often mistake Lookout Mountain for Case Mountain (elev. 735). The summit of Lookout Mountain has benches and a kiosk and gives visitors a great view of Downtown Manchester, Downtown Hartford, and the hills off to the west. The Shenipsit Trail is a blue-blazed trail running north–south through the area. Starting in East Hampton and going north to Somers, the Shenipsit trail covers over , about 5 of those miles are within the Case Mountain area. There are two vistas on this section of trail providing views of Hartford, but not nearly as panoramic as the views from the top of Lookout Mountain.


Mountain biking

Mountain biking Mountain biking (MTB) is a sport of riding bicycles off-road, often over rough terrain, usually using specially designed mountain bikes. Mountain bikes share similarities with other bikes but incorporate features designed to enhance durability ...
is a very popular activity at Case Mountain. Case Mountain was voted the Best Ride in Connecticut in ''Mountain Bike Magazine'' by readers. Bikers tend to stick to single-track trails, such as the locally famous "Metavomit" trail. The terrain on these trails is rocky with many steep climbs and descents. Rocks, logs, boulders, and man-made ladder-bridges (to make the trails "bikeable") are often intentionally incorporated into these mountain biking trails. Trail-braiding, when short trails are created that go around an obstacle or technical section or short-cut a sharp corner, the result of beginners riding on advanced trails, is not a large problem on mountain-bike trails at Case Mountain, because the "beginner" trails are unblazed and offer trial use for riders of varying skill levels. The Shenipsit Trail is for pedestrian use only. Connecticut Forest & Park Association
CFPA


Geology and ecology

The forest in which the Case Mountain trail system is located is mostly second-growth deciduous forest. The forest floor is littered with
boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In ...
s and rock gardens deposited from
glaciers A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...
during the last
ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...
. Along the Shenipsit Trail one can find clusters of chestnut oak, a very distinguishable tree that grows in rocky mountainous terrain in the Eastern US, and is prominent on ridgetops. In Glastonbury land owned by the Town of Manchester around the Buckingham Reservoir are large white pine trees. The Roaring Brook flows through the area creating marshy habitat just upstream of the reservoir and is a wide, fast moving stream further upstream and downstream. There are several
vernal pool Vernal pools, also called vernal ponds or ephemeral pools, are seasonal pools of water that provide habitat for distinctive plants and animals. They are considered to be a distinctive type of wetland usually devoid of fish, and thus allow the saf ...
s around Lookout and Case Mountains. These pools like small ponds in the winter and spring when they fill up with snowmelt. When wet, they teem with life, with frogs, toads, salamanders, fairy shrimp, and fingernail clams inhabiting them. By the summer they have usually dried up and appear to simply be small clearings in the woods. There have been black bear sightings at Case Mountain along with other wildlife typical of southern New England.


Getting there

There are four parking areas in Manchester providing access to the trail network. All parking areas have an information kiosk with trail maps. *Spring Street *Line Street Trailhead *Shenipsit Trailhead (Birch Mountain Road) *Case Pond Trailhead (Birch Mountain Road) There are also unofficial parking areas in Glastonbury providing access to trails that lead into Manchester. *Mountain Road (cul-de-sac at the end of street) *Old Hebron Road (access to the Buckingham Reservoir) *Birch Mountain Road (underneath the power lines)


References


CT MuseumQuest



External links



{{Protected Areas of Connecticut Protected areas of Hartford County, Connecticut Manchester, Connecticut Hiking trails in Connecticut