My Uncle John and my Aunt Doris were avid birdwatchers. They are also members of the National…read moreAudubon Society. I was a member for many years and loved to volunteer for local community service projects. I also love to visit sanctuary and park locations to spend time out in nature. This is an absolutely beautiful park in my former home state of Connecticut. It is memorable to visit with family and friends. This time of year the fall colors are beautiful to photograph. If you are in the area make this a stop to escape from the world!

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Great birding, hiking, beauty and topography are really something to be…read moreexperienced. Fair warning, beware bears. Just be prepared and bring your bear defense accoutrements. No one has ever been attacked or even charged but just being fair to the Audubon and you the hiker/birder. Note: no dogs allowed.

This 160 acre park in New Milford, CT is open 8am to sunset. Entrance is free and decent sized…read moreparking lot. You can walk over the bridge and follow the trails for a pleasant hike in nature. There are also some historical ruins you can read up on and then visit. The park was very clean. Wonderful way to enjoy the outdoors!

This was a really nice hike that I was able to come do. The park was another fun suggestion to me…read morefrom family as I was wanting to find some nice fall colors. All I saw was nice green and yellow leafs everywhere I loved the colors especially with how sunny and bright the day was. They had this really cool bridge you can look around on and check out the water. The bridge did have some gaps in the center so hope no one drops anything as you definitely won't be getting it back. Besides that though the bridge was very stable. There was also signs of information/history about the park too if you like to read about that stuff. It looked like there were a few paths you can take to walk around doesn't seem like you could get lost easy. There was this one cool path where you can see nothing but yellow leafs around you on the path and it looked so cool. I also found this really old hut looked interesting too. Just watch your step but otherwise I didn't see any difficult paths. I would definitely come back to this park when I come back to visit again.

Lovely walk I was lucky to find a Amazing Couple who allowed me to walk with them due to me not…read morebringing a bear whistle the trail was flat and clean. Hopefully my talking and walking was what they enjoyed their Love Story was magical just like this trail. To My Two New Friends Thank you for the Lovely Sunday Stroll. Next time I'll walk farther with a Bear whistle and family.

Great historical area with awesome up keep and no vandalized buildings!! (So far). You can also…read morefeel the cool breeze from the caves, the bat cage mine as well as the shaft on the main hiking trail.

I really enjoy hiking this location, especially in the winter. There is a train trestle that…read morecollects giant icicles. That's really cool to look at. We did the Pinney Loop which is just under 4 miles. The trail was obviously covered in snow as we had hiked January 1.

What goes great with a hike is coming with a group of friends and/or family, and Steep Rock…read morePreserve brings it all. It's worth the trip from surrounding areas for a weekend get-together or definitely the holidays. Free parking is provided with plenty of spaces to park. The trail map is provided at the beginning of the hike, or looking online and printing it out. Very useful to have on the whole journey. The main hiking trail is a gravel trail that parallels the Shepaug River from the parking lot, where cars pass through and also horses, which I found quite interesting. There are also dirt trails along the way with different colors (see map or online). Some highlights of coming here are checking out the old train tunnel, a bridge that crosses the river (which is wobbly, so be careful), and Steep Rock Summit, which can be tiring but well worth the climb with a decent view of the Clamshell section of the Shepaug River Valley. Bring snacks and a lot of fluids, it's needed according to the big map.

This was our 3rd hike this week, and by far the best one I've done in quite awhile. We chose the…read more3.5 mile (yellow) trail which started off along the river, past an old quarry and up to 2 vantage points (one mostly obscured). The trails are well maintained and clearly marked throughout. It starts off along the river and then moves along through series of hills of moderate height. It takes around 2 hours to complete, and the varied scenery makes it the whole trip a joy. We will definitely be back in the fall to see it again with more colorful foliage.

"Sixteen miles to seven lakes way up among the pines In some…read morehidden valley where the twirlin' river twines" (Gordon Lightfoot) Hidden Valley is beautiful - a quiet and tranquil oasis of peaceful solitude. It covers over 900 acres with wooded scenery, hiking trails, gorgeous river views, and a very cool wooden timber suspension bridge known as the Thoreau Bridge. The bridge was the high point of our visit. It spans 134′ across the Shepaug River. We saw a few photographers stationed on the bridge snapping away in search of a perfect photo of Mother Nature' majesty. Spread across the bridge's handrails and a bench at the base of the bridge are etched quotes from Henry David Thoreau's essays. The inscription on the bench contains what is perhaps Thoreau's best-known passage: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

Paugussett State Forest is a nice park, located along Lake Zoar. It's a nice little park, with a…read morewaterfall and nicely blazed trails, including one of the blue blazed trails, the Zoar Trail. There's not much here in the way of facilities, it being a state forest and not one of the CT parks. There's a lot, that actually fills up pretty quickly, so arriving earlier in the day is better. The views are nice of the river/lake, and the trail is well maintained.

Hiked all the way to Prydden Falls. It was great. The trail was maintained well enough. It is…read moredefinitely a bit strenuous as some places the trail is quite rocky and I can imagine it being quite slippery when wet or when it snows and it's icy. There was also a big tree across our path but nothing insurmountable. We chose to go under it rather than over or around. But one better be limber enough, as my husband got quite the scratch on his back from coming up too soon.

I love the stone tower! The first time I came here the place seemed enchanted, covered with…read morethousands of ladybugs flying around and all over the actual tower. They were also bees and other things buzzing around dragonflies and such. That was in October of 2024. We went back yesterday (April 7th 2026) there wasn't anything flying around, but it still was a magical place to go. lol. It's a great place to go for people who don't really wanna do a huge hike. Very easily accessible and pretty.

"All along the watchtower Princes kept the view…read moreWhile all the women came and went Barefoot servants, too" (Bob Dylan) Want to take a very cool and very short hike that ends at a spectacular water tower? If so, you'll love this 15 minute hike that runs about .6 mile out and back. There's a fascinating history behind Camp Columbia State Forest. Between 1885 and 1983 Columbia University held engineering and surveying classes on the property. In fact, a summer program at the camp was mandatory for engineering students. I also learned that Columbia University President Dwight Eisenhower spent time at the camp watching football practices and hunting. Some important stuff was invented and created here. Want an example? Sure you do. Well how about the concrete roof over Madison Square Garden? That engineering breakthrough was pioneered here. World War I saw the US Army train their officers and hold mock infantry assaults here. Student interest in the "Camp Experience" fell in the 1960s and combined with changes to the engineering curriculum, Columbia ended their use of the Camp. For the next 20 years or so, they used it on special occasions but eventually closed it in 1983. By 1989, many of the camp buildings had deteriorated so badly that the town declared them as public hazards and they were demolished in a controlled burn training exercise. In 2000, the state of Connecticut bought the property for $2.1 million. The outbound trail has a very slight incline, and be careful of the tree roots and rocks, or you may end up on your face. Also, be careful of a few downed trees that rudely block the trail. We saw two very cool things on the trail. The first was an old abandoned building, probably a camp meeting house. The roof was partially open from wear and tear, The front door was wide open, and we saw there was quite a bit of spray painted graffiti inside. The other cool thing we saw was a 60-foot cylindrical water tower with an observation platform, a gift of Columbia's Class of 1906. The front door to the tower was open as well, and if you're more adventurous than we were, you can walk up those stairs to another door that leads to an exterior cylindrical staircase. The scenery along the trail is very pretty with lots of wild flowers and berry bushes. (The park is on West St in Morris, CT. I submitted the address correction to Yelp)

There are two ways to get here: the paved road and the gravel road. If you have a 4x4 or another…read morehigh clearance vehicle, even bikes, you can do the unpaved road. Google did me a solid and took me on the unpaved road, which at the beginning is bumpy and soft, and seems very doable, but quickly turns rocky and hilly, and eventually goes berserk and turns into a road with big cracks, branches that are down, water puddles and brooks, a beautiful place to walk but not for a luxury four door sedan rental, which is what I always rent and ride. I'm joking, I rent two door vehicles, cheap gas, you know. Anyway, I went a bit too far hoping for the road to patch up and be normal, but after a few craters I knew that this road was a trail more than a road. So, if you are coming to Mohawk Mountain, do not leave the unpaved road because it will lead you to the main entrance and not where I was, which I never will know if it even leads to Mohawk Mountain since I aborted it after the second knock on the transmission. Oh! Yes, no way to turn around either, so I had to undo a large part of the trail on reverse. Good thing I know how to drive well! Other than that, this place is really cool. The name may be borrowed from an offshoot of the larger Iroquois nations, the Mohawk-Iroquois, which occupied New York, not Connecticut. As far as I know, the name of the tribe that may have inhabited this area is disputed.

I've been coming up here since I was a teenager! It's such a fun place to feel on top of the world…read moreand hang out. It's never "crowded" per se so it's peaceful and surrounded by nature. I like to bring a book when the temp is right and enjoy.