Whenever I feel hemmed in by development, get stuck in traffic, or simply crave a quiet walk in the woods, I head to Pachaug State Forest, a lush, hilly, serene swath that spreads out over 27,000 acres in eastern Connecticut.

Within minutes of hitting the trail, I can surround myself with towering pines and hemlocks, duck under tunnels of mountain laurel, gaze from rocky ledges, traipse past pristine rivers, streams, lakes and ponds, or even muck through resplendent marshes.

So much grandeur beckons: Green Falls Pond, Mount Misery, High Ledge, Bear Cave, the Rhododendron Sanctuary, and the state’s most extensive stand of Atlantic white cedars at the Great Meadow Swamp, a National Natural Landmark.

Last week, Andy Lynn, Robin Francis and I decided that instead of aiming for any of these destinations, we would hike more or less aimlessly – that is, letting our whims dictate the route, rather than follow a carefully plotted course. Pachaug, Connecticut’s largest state forest, is crisscrossed by miles of trails, unpaved roads and unmarked footpaths, making it one of the best locations for such a DIY hike.

Robin almost quashed this plan from the get-go by opening up a hiking app on her smartphone that directed us to a remote parking lot next to Phillips Pond in Voluntown. After dutifully following a prescribed route for a few hundred yards that eventually would have led us to a gravel road and back to the parking lot, I proclaimed, “Smartphones? We don’t need no stinking smartphones!”

The three of us then veered away from the app-recommended route – but not before Robin warned me, “If we get lost, it’s your fault!”

Disclosure: We weren’t exactly flying blind. I had brought a paper map that shows every single inch of Pachaug’s myriad corridors – from wide, packed-gravel thoroughfares to narrow, single-track footpaths.

I briefly entertained the notion of straying onto these secluded, unmarked trails, but in the end, we stuck to well-trod, blazed paths maintained by the Connecticut Forest & Park Association. Volunteers from this wonderful organization have established a statewide network of some 900 miles of trails.

Before European colonists arrived in the 17th century and began damming rivers, building mills and clearing land for farms, the area had been occupied by Narragansett, Pequot, and Mohegan tribes. Pachaug is the Algonquin word for “bend in the river.”

The state forest was founded in 1928 with the purchase of 1,011 acres from the Briggs Manufacturing Co. in Voluntown. Five years later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration created the Civilian Conservation Corps, which became known as “Roosevelt’s Tree Army.”

From 1933 to 1941, thousands of workers assigned to Pachaug’s Camp Lonergan cleared trails, planted trees, and created campsites and picnic areas. A statue of a CCC worker now greets visitors near forest headquarters.

During that period, the state expanded its holdings with additional land acquisitions that reach into North Stonington, Preston, Griswold, Plainfield and Sterling.

We began hiking north from Phillips Pond on a section of the Pachaug Trail that descends into one of the forest’s most foreboding features: Hell Hollow. This ominous name is derived from a legend surrounding the separate deaths of three children born to Lucy and Gilbert Reynolds of Hell Hollow Road in the late 1800s. Some say the ghost of the last child to die, 1-year-old Maud, haunts the area.

We saw no such apparition – only a thin layer of ice on Hell Hollow Pond.

The Pachaug Trail extends for 24.4 miles, but we detoured in less than a mile onto the Quinebaug Crossover Trail, which rises on a gentle ridge overlooking the pond. Parts of this path were chewed up, possibly by authorized logging or unauthorized ATVs, but a rewarding view from the top of Flat Rock made up for the jumbled terrain. After this rough patch, the footing improved on a smooth, hard surface of a massive basalt dome.

We then joined the Quinebaug Trail and followed it back to our car at Phillips Pond. Pine needles cushioned the path for the last mile or so.

“That was a really nice stretch,” Andy said. We then took turns guessing how far we’d hiked.

“Six-point-six miles,” I predicted.

“Six-point-two,” Robin said.

“Seven,” Andy estimated.

Robin checked her phone: 7.87 miles.

This was a pleasant surprise – hikes almost always seem longer than the actual distance. Maybe we were better off not having a meticulously planned itinerary.

I’ll have to test this theory on another Pachaug excursion.