We finally had the chance to visit the third park owned by the Steep Rock association. It was a cold soggy day but the views were worth the trip!
Last year we were able to visit Hidden Valley and Steep Rock preserves in Washington Connecticut. Both of these are basically local Instagram famous! The Steep rock association owns a third preserve in the same town though that is much less known. Macricostas preserve looked like a winner in terms of vistas so we took off on a Saturday with a predicted temperature of 60 degrees... only to find clouds rolling in and the expected temp drop to 45.
When we rolled into the GPS coordinates we found a community garden and a friendly scare crow waiting at the parking lot. This is a hard to miss sign that you're in the right spot. Despite the weather the lot was absolutely PACKED with cars, much to our surprise. We expected to be a bit swarmed with fellow hikers but found ourselves alone the whole time except for two very small group at the top of the trail.
This bridge went under construction the day after we were here!
After crossing a small wetland that was extremely muddy we came out into the large meadow that defines this park. Calling this are soggy would be an understatement. Luckily the wooden features and bridges pick up quickly and lead you right into your ascent. I'm pretty sure we picked the steepest trail up!
The first vista gives you a great southern view from the parking lot all the way out over the meadow. There are several trails that ascend the mountain but do not go to this vista so be sure to check a trail map if you want to go here. The main trail that leads here is quite steep as well, you've been warned!
From the first vista you will only climb up a little more before the trail becomes quite flat. We encountered a good deal of mud here but the in about ten minutes we reach Waramaugs rock, a rocky outcropping with an expansive view of lake Waramaug. I actually believed this was a river at the time!
Lake Waramaug as seen from Waramaug's Rock
We descended on the white trail which was a mostly gravel trail following a small stream. This was a very quick and easy descent which crosses the water once and merges back into the original trail near the meadow. Despite the skies clearing the ground was still soaked but we slogged our way across the field to check out the final highlight, the beaver dam area.
A beautiful little viewing platform with built in benches awaited us, but unfortunately the beavers did not. It was probably too early in the season to expect them to be out and about doing much but I can see this being one of the better spots in the state to view beavers from. My question though is wouldn't a beaver view this platform as potential lumber for his project? Regardless of the lack of beavers it was still worth the trek, I'm just glad our hiking boats are water proof because it was really that soggy. With Macricostas fully explored we also head to one other local attraction.
Located just a mile down the road, New Preston Falls is another Connecticut's waterfalls that I've been slowly hunting down. They were overflowing with water this day from all the rain but unfortunately they are pretty hard to get a good angle on. 3 different areas provide different views but due to some old ruins you can't really photograph them in their entirety. They're still worth a look when you're in the area hiking though!
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