A trip from Cornwall Covered Bridge to Bulls Bridge has you travel past some amazing falls. This includes Kent Falls State Park, one of the best parks in Connecticut!
We began our trip at the Cornwall Covered Bridge. This is one of three remaining covered bridges in our state that is fully original. There is a nice little "mini park" with some bench to let you enjoy the scenery and take photos. The bridge is one lane so be careful when crossing.
After crossing the bridge and heading south you'll pass another water fall directly on the road. Pine Swamp brook falls as it's known is SUPER easy to miss as it passes directly through a tiny ravine and directly into the river. Unless you are looking out the passenger window you'll never know its there. There is a pull out for two cars a few hundred feet down the road. Please be careful as the road comes around a nearly blind curve on the side you park so you could easily be hit while walking back to this.
There is some evidence of old concrete stairs here, and one of those markers in the stone saying who built it, so even though it feels like you shouldn't be here it was clearly intended for viewing!
The fall is probably 20 feet tall on the upper part and the second drop a bit smaller. currently there are some trees down here making it hard to photograph and requires climbing under. Definitely worth checking out if you're in the area.
Next we headed to the Pine Knob Loop about 5 minutes south. We did not hike the entire loop, we just visited to see the falls. After crossing the stream along a few well placed rocks, the trail goes up hill at a steady incline. It follows along the brook but not super close. You can at points get to the water but it's a fairly steep ravine in most sections.
It doesn't take long to get to the main cascade on your left. Again, to take this photo required me to trek down a pretty steep embankment of loose dirt. It's very large, probably 30 feet by my guess and 8-10 feet wide at its widest. If you continue up the trail there is a small waterfall that is very far off the trail and a second small cascade that is very easy to get to as its right next to the trail. Unfortunately this upper cascade isn't very pretty.
Kent Falls is located another ten+ minutes down the road from Pine Knob. This is an absolute gem of Connecticut and is almost always packed with people. It's about as close as CT will come to a New York or New Hampshire water fall. Just across the adorable covered pedestrian bridge is a very large picnic grove with grills.
You can see the base of the falls from the parking lot, and after a good rain these can be very impressive. We were there in May so they were of moderate size which is still excellent. These can be very difficult to photograph simply due to the crowds gathering in front of them. There is an awesome little stone seating area like an amphitheater at the base of the falls but everyone climbs up between the falls!
The falls become less impressive as you climb the stone stairs of the trail but there are many viewing platforms to take them in. Speaking of trails, the main trail with the stairs follows the falls directly up; there is a second trail on the other side that comes back down but it doesn't have any views. The third trail in the park is a seemingly random diversion at the base of the main trail that goes into the woods and comes back.
The final water fall at the top of the trail is an impressive single plunge followed by a second bridal veil style drop. This is worth the climb, and even slowly taking in all the falls along the trail will only take you less then 30 minutes. This once again has the problem of crowds, this time though they like to climb along the top of the fall as the trail leads directly atop it. It also has two separate viewing platforms to view it from different angles. This is a must do when in Connecticut!
To finish our trip we headed another ten minutes down the road to Bull's Bridge. The last of the 3 original covered bridges we needed to visit in our state. What we didn't know was that the dams located literally right next to it are open! This provided some crazy water flow and raging rapids. We even got to witness some kayakers braving the rapids just down stream. The main dam is viewable next to the bridge along a small trail. There is another located through the woods by the parking lot on the western side of the bridge. Lastly just south of that same parking lot and across the road is viewing platform looking down the river.
This spot is part of the Appalachian Trail so the trail board is full of cool information on local wild life and has some other neat
things I won't spoil here.
It took me about an hour to get out here and we spent about 5 hours seeing everything. I may take longer then most since I film and photograph everything but this is a great way to spend an afternoon!
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