Steve Fagin: 2022 in review: Hiking, kayaking, running, biking, swimming -- the fun never stops

Dec. 29—This Sunday, friends and I plan to start the New Year the same way we've kicked off every Jan. 1 for more than half a century: with a joyous dash and frigid splash.

Four buddies carried out southeastern Connecticut's first New Year's Day swim as an impromptu lark on Jan. 1, 1969. Since then, the tradition has evolved into a yearly celebration attended by hundreds of colorfully clad, noisemaker-rattling revelers.

The free event, open to all, starts at noon at the Johnny Kelley statue in Mystic's Bank Square. Runners lope a little over three miles at a very casual pace to Esker Point, and jump in the water. Some die-hards then jog back.

I always look forward to this madcap reunion with free spirits who share my concept of a good time. Several of them hiked, paddled and biked hundreds of miles with me over the past 12 months. Here are some of 2022's highlights (and a few missteps):

Kayak adventures

— The most memorable paddles were a four-day, 80-mile excursion from Windsor to Old Mystic in July, and a 90-plus-mile voyage the length of Lake Champlain, from Ticonderoga, N.Y. to the Canadian border in September.

For the July trip, Phil Plouffe and I met my son, Tom, on the Connecticut River, and joined him on a paddle to Long Island Sound and up the Mystic River to Old Mystic, camping along the way.

This was the home stretch of an epic journey for Tom, who had already spent the previous three weeks bicycling, hiking and paddling solo some 700 miles, from Old Mystic to Maine and back — so for him, the last 80 miles with Phil and me were a walk in the park.

Two months later, Phil, Andy Lynn and I bucked strong winds and crashing waves on the first half of our Lake Champlain voyage, but by the time we reached Valcour Island near the end of the trip, we enjoyed sunny, sublime conditions.

— Closer to home, the Connecticut River, blocked by impenetrable sheets of ice in February, might as well have been the Arctic Ocean. Robin Francis, Andy, Tom and I couldn't launch from Essex Town Dock or a ramp beneath the Baldwin Bridge in Old Saybrook, so we drove to the Great Island state boat launch in Old Lyme, where we managed to slide over a narrow, frozen patch and enter open water. We had hoped to paddle north to view bald eagles near Hamburg Cove in Lyme, but there was no way to navigate through frozen floes.

Instead, we steered south to Long Island Sound, and then returned along the Great Island wildlife preserve, where glittering ice, carved into intricate shapes by wind and tide, coated the shore.

No eagles, but a rewarding reminder that the Lower Connecticut River is stunning in any season.

— Tom and I enjoyed an exhilarating whitewater paddle on the Salmon River at the Marlborough/East Hampton border in April, when the water was high from melting snow and spring rains.

As in past excursions here, we capped the day off with a heart-thumping plunge through a breach in an old dam, dropping six feet over a series of jagged ledges. Whee!

— In May, Robin Francis, Declan Nowak and I paddled out to Shea Island off the coast of Norwalk in Long Island Sound for a two-day kayak-camping trip. I can still hear Robin cursing our first night, when rain from a furious thunderstorm leaked into her tent. Happily, morning fog burned off the next day, and we enjoyed a glorious paddle in a section of Long Island Sound I don't often get to explore.

Hitting the trail

— One of my favorite hikes in 2022 was a 50-mile sojourn, in stages, on the Shenipsit Trail, from East Hampton in Central Connecticut to Stafford, near the Massachusetts border. Joining various legs of the trek were Phil, Andy, Maggie Jones, Chris Woodside, Mary Sommer, Andy Lynn and Steve Kurczy, who toted his 2-year-old son, Manny, in a backpack carrier.

The most important member of that expedition was our unofficial guide, Larry Lawrence, who we met by luck our first day on the trail, and who agreed to join us the rest of the way. Larry had hiked the trail previously and kept us on track, despite our tendency to stray.

— Phil, Maggie, Andy, Chris, Carl Astor and I visited several other outstanding parks and preserves in 2022, including the McLean Game Refuge, which spreads out over 4,400 acres in Granby, Simsbury and Canton; the 4,000-acre White Memorial Foundation in Litchfield; the 1,200-acre lower block of Paugussett State Forest in Newtown; 412-acre Chatfield Hollow State Park in Killingworth; and Indian Council Caves in Barkhamsted.

We followed the McLean refuge's well-marked paths over rocky ridges, past traprock talus slopes, around secluded ponds and along crystal-clear streams, in a dense evergreen forest evocative of the Canadian wilderness; savored serene silence while meandering through the White Foundation's lush forests and cranberry bogs; followed Paugussett's Zoar Trail over hilly woodlands that culminated in a scenic ramble overlooking Lake Zoar; scrambled over and under amazing rock formations at Chatfield Hollow; were mesmerized by a massive stone wall at Indian Council Caves that Maggie called "the Metropolitan Opera House of overhangs."

— We also enjoyed two stellar hikes in December, while surrounded by an emerald expanse of evergreens, moss and mountain laurel at Rhode Island's 14,000-acre Arcadia Management Area.

On the first excursion, we missed an unmarked trail while trying to navigate a route around Browning Mill Pond, and wound up miles out of the way. By luck, the only other person we saw in the woods that day, Kyle Ellis, gave us a ride back to our car.

Our group returned a few weeks later with maps, and found the right trail. I'll write about this outing next week.

As Kyle noted, veering off the trail can be part of the adventure. That has long been our credo.

Here's hoping 2023 will also be filled with fun and adventure, even if we take a few missteps along the way.