Cutting The Ribbon For Al’s Trail

By Dottie Evans

It has been a long and winding path to completion and there are still some rough sections, but on Saturday, September 3, the bright red ribbon spanning the Rocky Glen State Park entrance to Al’s Trail was cut, signaling the ten-mile trail’s official opening day.

This event occurred two-and-one-half years from Al’s Trail Dedication Day held on March 20, 2003, at a pancake breakfast that was put on by the Newtown Lions Club and celebrated alongside the Pootatuck River behind the United Methodist Church.

“I want to congratulate everyone who made this day possible. Special recognition goes to Al Goodrich and Mary Mitchell, godfather and godmother of Newtown’s trails, and to Pat Barkman, who has carried the work of completing Al’s Trail forward,” said First Selectman Herb Rosenthal.

 Standing nearby was Ms Mitchell, co-author with Mr Goodrich of several editions of the Newtown Trails walk books. The publication of these trail books preceded Mr Goodrich’s decision to attempt to blaze a single through-town trail that would combine many existing trails with adjacent town owned open spaces, Newtown Forest Association land, public utility land, state park lands, and riverside greenways.

The final version of the trail extends more than ten miles from the Upper Paugussett State Forest to its southern terminus behind Reed Intermediate School in Fairfield Hills. Perhaps the most challenging section was the under-highway section that joins the northern and southern parts of the trail as it passes beneath I-84 along the Pootatuck River. It was this section that Mr Goodrich personally scoped out, meeting with highway engineers and state officials to confer about possible routes.

By 2002, Mr Goodrich, a longtime Newtown resident, engineer, and dedicated hiker, had walked a great deal of the trail with Ms Barkman, an artist and dedicated hiker who is a longtime member of the town’s Open Space Task Force. After his death in January 2003, she took up the cause, spurring fellow task force members and countless volunteers on to make the dream a reality.

“I am so happy to see this day finally come. We couldn’t have done it without the help of so many volunteers,” Ms Barkman said.

Town Conservation Officer Rob Sibley, who led a nature walk after the ribbon cutting, admitted that it was the concept of Al’s Trail and the inspiration he drew from reading the published Newtown trails books that led him to seek a career in land use in this town.

“I saw all the excellent work these people had already done in Newtown on behalf of open space preservation, and I knew that was the field I wanted to enter,” he said.

Others who attended Saturday’s ribbon cutting were State Representative Julia Wasserman, members of the Open Space Task Force, ornithologist Leon Barkman, David Goodrich, former Newtown resident and son of Al Goodrich, and Pam Tichon, mother of Dan Tichon, the Newtown High School senior who built the Rocky Glen kiosk for his Eagle Scout project.

Members of the Open Space Task Force include Chairman Joe Hovious, Vice Chairman Pat Barkman, Secretary Sallie O’Neil, Marj Cramer, Mark Lurie, Caraleigh Wilson, and Martha Wright.