The Hanover River Trail runs from Maple Street at Downing Road to the electric substation on South Main Street. Head downslope on a moderate slope following an earthen path shored up with timber steps. The trail turns left to parallel the Connecticut River with some great picturesque views of Vermont and upstream views of the Ledyard Bridge. After following a narrow side-hill section along the river, the trail turns left, down a short set of stairs, to follow Mink Brook back to South Main Street. Easy trail except for stairs and timber step sections.

The Connecticut, New England’s longest river, stretches for 410 miles from a small pond on a spruce-fir ridge at the northern tip of New Hampshire on the Quebec border to the beaches and marshes of Long Island Sound. Its watershed drains some 11,000 square miles of rural, wild, and urban land. Two countries share a border at its northern edge, and four states are inextricably linked by this network of earth, river, and sea. All share in the rich heritage of the Connecticut, the “long tidal river” named by the Algonquians of southern New England. The Connecticut is just one of fourteen rivers in the nation designated as an American Heritage River. The US Department of Interior named it America’s first “Blueway” in 2012.