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Soon, you’ll see circular metal blazes, painted red with a white “C” in the center, nailed into the trees along the way. This indicates your presence on public property, legitimizes your business in this inaccessible pocket of the woods, and will guide your way for the time being.

Follow the blazes up over a mossy notch to your left. The trail parallels DuPont’s fence closely, allowing limited views into the front of the Cap Works, mostly into its empty scrap yards. You’ll cross a small brook, with a black pipe leading from the streambed under the fence. The scrap yards end at a clearing in the woods, visible around the point that the Cannonball Trail veers away from the fence toward the stream. The trail begins to get rockier, soon forking at a deep cleft in a rock outcrop. The blazes continue to the right, toward the rest of the State Forest past the pedestrian footbridge over Interstate 287. However, our tour continues on the unmarked path to the left. Follow it through the depression in the earth and consider the origin of this topographical quirk; Was it planned, paved, maybe plowed, or produced by the same geological processes that formed the hills around you?

Take this trail until you see the fence reappear to your left. Here’s where the trespassing begins again. Walk along the fence until you see an opening. Despite periodic repairs, there will almost certainly be a hole at this evidently popular access point. Duck under the top wire of the fence as you shrug off your plausible deniability and commit the petty disorderly offense of defiant trespassing, punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a fine of $500.

On the other side, you’ll find a wall made of gabions, which are large rectangular structures composed of rock enclosed by a metal wire mesh. The wall isn’t tall, and you can easily scale it by sitting on it and turning around.

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