A trip to the North Eastern side of CT doesn't often equate to a hike with views and water falls, but this park has both!
The Eastern part of Connecticut isn't known for having tremendous mountain ranges or torrential waterfalls, yet we found ourselves hunting for both here a few weekends ago. Old Furnace State Park had been on my radar for quite a while but finding a reason to get out that far east was a problem. You'll find yourself much closer to Providence than Hartford by the time you get there but it's really worth the visit!
Finley, the dog, chewed apart my hiking boots so we headed to buy a new pair. That got us about half way to this park so we bit the bullet and head out. The hike itself starts with a somewhat sketchy stream crossing. The water was flowing heavily and you had to step on to a small log in the flow that wasn't secured to anything. I have a feeling this is less dangerous other times of the years. After a short hike through the woods you reach the ridge line and a small ascent.
This ridgeline is a series of out cropping's providing fantastic views of the "Old Furnace" pond below. We also witnessed a couple who were just finishing up their climbing adventures, repelling down before I could set up my camera. The trail here is rather unmarked but easy to navigate since the pond is always in view. The main peak cliff is easy to identify as it's also covered in graffiti.
The hike down is quick and dumps you into a parking lot. The opposite shore is a mostly flat gravel trail heading back but provides a lovely shore view looking back up at the cliffs you were just on. It was still early in the season, the foliage hadn't even begun to come in, so I'm not sure if the pond allows for swimming or boats. That said, if I lived in this area I would definitely enjoy relaxing at this park.
At the northern most part of the pond is a small dam with a spill way. There was an unattached piece of wood here that we thought about crossing but it doesn't appear that the trail really continues this direction... at least not by intention. The actual trail is easily in view though, fear not, we were just very curious to explore the features here. A quick backtrack and several foot bridges later...
...Gets you a cute a view of the cute little fall created by the spill way. This isn't really the waterfall that we came here for though. Hidden amongst online reviews was a note about a waterfall and I thought I'd heard something near our initial parking lot, so now we were on a mission.
Due to a battery malfunction our explorations bushwhacking were cut out but suffice it to say we found a half decent cascade that wasn't very photogenic before stumbling on the actual falls located just a walk out of the parking lot and before you cross the stream into the main trail. Just take a right before that stream to find some rock walls and bam!
This unnamed waterfall is a pretty good size, probably 15 feet, and it looks nice in this area. You'll have to climb over a crumbled rock wall to get a good angle on it but it's worth a look. I'm not sure why this isn't listed on the park map, most parks list all the natural features like this for folks to find but I promise it's really easy to locate using your ears!.. or you know, just reading my directions above.
as a bonus, we drove ten minutes north to visit Cargill Falls. Seeing as how we would likely not find ourselves in this area again any time soon we figured we should get this one out of the way. While it's basically man made, it's still an impressive flow by any metric. One of the biggest in the state I would imagine, albeit not necessarily the prettiest. Parking is located nearby but requires crossing a busy intersection!
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