Hiking Chatfield Hollow State Park in Connecticut
This time we took someone’s advice on Reddit to go check out a park called Chatfield Hollow State Park located in Connecticut. Let me tell ya, we sure are glad we did!
We got to the park and immediately noticed the popularity of the place. There are actually quite a few places to go hiking in this portion of Connecticut, but people seemed to choose this park over the others. After making our way through the park, we would have to agree that this is a special place in Connecticut.
NEAT CAVE
The very first trail we hit up had a pretty sweet little cave located towards the middle of it. This trail is very close to the park entrance if you are just looking for a short hike.
This trail kind of had its own vibe compared to the rest of the park that we strolled through. The trees seemed a bit different and there was a semi-swampy area just west of the caves that looked really neat.
WHITE TRAIL
WHITE TRAILAlthough there was still quite a bit of ice packed into corners of the park, it was actually a nice warm day near 50 degrees. Hard to beat these temperatures in the New England area in January. The photo above was taken on the white trail that you can access just off the main road looping through the park.
LITTLE BIT ICY
As you can see from some of the pictures in the above gallery, parts of the trail were a bit sketchy as ice seemed to form in the least convenient places. Luckily, for most of the areas we encountered ice covering the trail, we could easily find a way around. If not, I just broke the ice with my foot so the dog wouldn’t slip n slide.
ICE FORMATIONS WERE AMAZING!
If you checked out the video, the photos above show where we saw the tadpole like water droplets falling back behind the frozen sheets of ice among the cliffs.
This was honestly probably one of my favorite parts of the red trail (oh btw this was on the red trail), although it is obviously a seasonal rare feature. This is another reason to go hiking out in the winter folks! Never a bad time to go hiking…well, almost never a bad time to go hiking. 🙂
GORGEOUS RIVER
Another fantastic feature of this park was the river/stream/creek flowing down the center of the state park. This area again was especially beautiful with all of the frozen clusters of ice along and within the flowing water. You can either get next to this river while hiking the purple trail, or just hiking along the road (which most people seemed to do while we were visiting).
DOG FRIENDLY
Did I mention this place is dog friendly? Holy cow is this place dog friendly. Someone could have easily mistaken this state park as a dog park the day we were visiting. Dogs of all shapes and sizes were roaming all around and sniffing everything in sight.
AMAZING POND
And last but not least, the amazing pond and beautiful falls near the dam at this state park was a must see. Even if you don’t want to hike through the park, you can see these great works of art via nature while driving around the loop (when the road is open during warmer months).
However folks, as I said before, this is a great place to do some winter hiking as well. Just be careful and bring proper gear depending on the weather. If it is icy, we like to use our YakTrax, if it is muddy my Danner Crater Rim Boots work great, and if its a nice summer day you can try either a men’s or women’s hiking sandals out. Do what works best for you. 🙂
OTHER NEARBY HIKING
NOTE FROM WRITER
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Adventure On!
