Connecticut
#2 Mount Frissell (southern slope), elevation 2,380 ft.
Rattlesnakes. Mountain laurel. Paragliders.
Mount Frissell was the first mountain I climbed deliberately in order to reach its summit. It isn’t a difficult hike, but the trail is rugged in spots and requires scrambling up a few pitches of often wet rock. And there can be snakes.
The most trying part, however, is the drive to the trailhead. Mount Washington Road is dusty when dry, muddy when wet, and rutted all year round. I gouged my front right tire on the initial trip, leaving me poorer by about $300. Climbing Frissell in late June treats you to a florescence of mountain laurel, Connecticut’s state flower. In August, highbush blueberries are ripe. Be careful in any warm season because the talus slopes of northwest Connecticut are also home to one of the state's few populations of timber rattlesnakes. I got "lucky" on my first trip up and came across a black morph specimen sunning itself just a few dozen yards below the summit marker (see the link to the gallery, below). Online sources claim that most of the rattlesnakes in Connecticut are relatively docile because the aggressive ones were killed off and the gene pool has adjusted accordingly, but that is not a hypothesis worth testing. I gave the little bugger wide berth, nervous that either its jealous mate or hungry brood might be lurking in the leaf litter.
Map from Lindsay S. Keener-Eck, Human Dimensions of Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) Management in Connecticut (2017)
I got "lucky" on my first trip up and came across a black morph specimen sunning itself just a few dozen yards below the summit marker (see the link to the gallery, below). Online sources claim that most of the rattlesnakes in Connecticut are relatively docile because the aggressive ones were killed off and the gene pool has adjusted accordingly, but that is not a hypothesis worth testing. I gave the little bugger wide berth, nervous that either its jealous mate or hungry brood might be lurking in the leaf litter.
The first time I climbed Frissell I missed the summit (but not the highpoint) because it was hidden through thick leaves and I hadn’t done my due diligence before climbing. You reach the summit—before you get to the highpoint marker—on a short herd path through the woods to your right (if hiking up from Mount Washington Road), about 10 feet off the main trail and ever so slightly uphill. On my last visit, the register was housed in an Army surplus metal box. The Frissell highpoint itself is marked by an oxidized brass rod and modest cairn.
If you continue down the Mount Frissell Trail you reach the Tristate Marker, a stone pillar denoting the intersection of New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. One side is uncarved because of a border dispute at the time the marker was erected in the nineteenth century.
In my research on Frissell I have yet to discover the origins of its name. Please drop me a note if you know. I discovered that the area surrounding the mountain and nearby Lake Riga was once dotted with iron foundries. The ruins of one can be seen in this vintage photo postcard. The cannon used aboard the U.S.S. Constitution, or "Old Ironsides," was said to have been made in these parts.
Connecticut is unique among the 50 states in that its highest point is neither a summit nor the top of some other prominence but, rather, the spot on Frissell where it crosses the state line. Frissell’s summit actually lies just over the border, in Massachussetts. The highest point of Connecticut is instead the spot on Frissell's southern slope where the mountain crosses the state line at an elevation just a few dozen feet higher than the state’s tallest summit, which belongs to nearby Bear Mountain. A plaque on the old stone tower atop Bear Mountain proclaims that it marks the "highest ground" in the state.
Yet another vintage postcard shows the tower on Bear in a somewhat idealized former state. The foundation of the pyramid today is more bedraggled but still a natural place to rest and have lunch, and the hike up Bear is, in my opinion, much nicer than the one up Frissell. Just mind the snakes.
My videos of Frissell are barely from the smartphone age and show it. I left them as is, without even my minimal amateur “editing” to tart them up.