Bradbury-Pineland Corridor and Elmwood Trails

The corridor trail system is in blue; reserved lands are in green; Bradbury State Park in orange.

This network of paths provides access to the backside of Bradbury Mountain State Park and to the trails connecting the park to Pineland Public Land.

If you start at the parking lot on Lawrence Road (where there’s room for quite a lot of cars, perhaps ten), it’s about a 2.3-mile hike to the mountain summit (distances will vary depending on what route you take up in the park).

At 0.3 miles from the parking lot, you can take a left to explore the old feldspar quarry active in the 1920s. The mineral was used in porcelain and china. A network of little paths weave around the quarry pools and large rock piles. Some of them glitter with bits of mica and other rocks. Be careful on the lip of the larger quarry pool, the cliffs are steep and high!

Back on the main path, you’ll descend to Thoit’s Branch, a pretty stream, cross a bridge, and then hit a moderate climb up to the boundary of Bradbury Park. This boundary is about 1.1 miles from the parking area (if you skip the quarry).

On the other side of Lawrence Road, you can walk 1.2 miles to the power lines, and from there, walk about four miles to Pineland Lands. Or, preferably, you can follow the 1.6-mile Elmwood Trail south to Elmwood Road.

This pleasant, albeit somewhat hilly, trail starts in a beautiful meadow—grassland bird habitat, so keep your dog on a leash during nesting season. It curves around the top of the meadow and then descends through a shadowy old hemlock forest to wooden steps that bring you to a pretty spot on Chandler Brook. This spot is about 0.6 miles from the Lawrence Road parking lot, and is a good place to turn around if you don’t want to commit to a 4.5-mile loop.

But if you’d like to keep hiking, you can continue walking along the brook’s bank for another 0.5 miles. The stream is hard to access because of the high, steep bank. When the path veers away from the brook, it’s another 0.5 miles to Elmwood Road. Once you reach Elmwood Road, find the trail across the road. In 0.7 miles it reconnects to the power lines. The return to the trailhead on Lawrence Road via the corridor trail is about 2.3 miles, making the total loop about 4.6 miles. Or, if you head south, it’s about 2.8 miles to Pineland Public Reserve Land.

Directions: There are several trailheads for this system. You can pick up the connector trail at 819 Elmwood Road, where there is a medium-sized lot and trailhead kiosk. Another trailhead and sizeable parking area is located on the west side of Lawrence Road, 0.9 miles from the junction, and 0.6 miles from the Elwood Road junction (500 Lawrence Road). Additionally, if the Lawrence Road parking lot if full, try the small pullover on Sweetser Road, at 102 Sweetser Road, where there’s room for three cars. And of course, you can always park at Bradbury Mountain State Park or Pineland Public Reserve Land trailhead and walk the full system and get an epic workout!