This small preserve is often overlooked since it's surrounded by state parks, but it's home to waterfalls and beautiful trails. Watch our video and then read about our trip below:
This small 119 acre preserve is located in East Haddam, sandwiched between the ever popular Gillette Castle and Devils Hop Yard State Parks. It makes for a fantastic stop when traveling between the two parks, as many people do. Several parking areas can be used and the lovely signage for the park has trail maps that you can grab.
A good sized stream runs through the center of the park. We parked our car in the cul-de-sac on ridgefield road and hiked down the white to yellow to blue trails, crossing the stream over a bridge. The rest of the hike meanders along side the stream as mini waterfalls descend the property.
You come to the main fall quickly, it takes a bit bushwhacking off the path to angle yourself directly in front of it. It runs between the rocks and so it's not visible clearly unless you do this. The main drop here was more then twice my height so was probably 14 feet plus.
We luckily shared the falls with only a swarm of nats, and only saw two other groups in the entire park that day.
The water continues to drop down several more falls of small size, however each drop becomes more and more difficult to get to. We were hopping along loose rocks as best we could but gave up half way down.
The position of the falls makes it hard to capture the entire set of falls in one photo. It runs at an angle down between many rocks and at a distance the trees obscure it. It's drops a total elevation of probably more then 75 feet though and you can sure it hear it from far away!
The northern side of the park borders a pond that has a beaver dam, their homes very visible from the shore. We took a look for beavers but none were out to be photographed!
If you continue west along the blue trail you will find the newer bridge that was built and connects to the parking lot at sheepskin road. from this bridge you can see, and hear, a large water fall. This is maybe 8 feet tall and looks like a miniature Wadsworth falls. What it lacks in height it makes up for in width and the amount of water that was pouring over it that day. IT was powerful and we stopped to get closer and take photos. This preserve is a must visit when you are in the area, we were in an out in an hour.
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