Hiking Kettletown State Park In Connecticut
On this adventure we traveled to a state park that is just about a half hour east of Danbury, CT called Kettletown State Park. This particular park has camping, swimming (when a bit warmer than our visit), and a few awesome hiking trails that we were lucky enough to explore!
–> KETTLETOWN STATE PARK TRAIL MAP <–
HOORAY WINTER HIKES!
If you have been following our blog and our videos lately, you are probably wondering if we ever choose a day that is actually semi-warm. On the day we went hiking, it was actually just below freezing temperatures, so for Connecticut during winter, it honestly wasn’t too bad of a hike.
We got to this park a little after lunch and spent all the afternoon exploring. We didn’t get through the entire park, but we did make it from the western side all the way to the eastern portion of the park.
SWEET HILLY TERRAIN
Deanna took some really awesome photos of the overlooks on the western portion of the park (shown above). This was in part 1 of our video mini-series on this beautiful state park (video shown below).
FAIRLY EASY TRAILS
The western portion of this park isn’t super challenging hiking wise, but there are some short steep stretches to get up to these overlooks.
If you are looking for some easy accessible trails, this park is a bit more on the moderate to difficult side in that regard. However, none of these trails are very long and all the beautiful nature surrounding us made it worth every ounce of sweat. 🙂
FAVORITE TRAIL
Our favorite trail of the day was definitely hiking along the beautiful stream that flowed through the center of the park just off one of the main roads. It is quite a beautiful ravine area complete with falls and some really neat natural ice sculptures formed along its banks.
Although it looks like I may have been posing for a couple of the above photos, I really was just staring off into the wilderness absorbing all I could. It is a must see if you ever head to this park.
BEAUTIFUL CREEK
The second part of our video series really does highlight the stream/creek portion of this park, although we do later hike towards the other viewpoints/overlooks within the eastern side of the park. We did arrive a tad late during the day so we weren’t able to spend as much time enjoying nature as we would have liked.
So if you do plan on hitting up this park, I recommend bringing a lunch with you and spending at least the late morning through the afternoon exploring. There are plenty of places to rest and eat a snack.
SHIMMERING BEAUTY
We may have went a little overboard on the pictures of this area, but you have to admit that it is awesome. The thin sheets of ice shimmering across the top of the water really added to the natural beauty in this park. We definitely want to come back in the spring/summer time and check it out when its covered in vegetation as well.
After spending a ton of time along the creek side, we ventured off east on the blue/white mixed trail to see what views were offered at the overlooks on the map.
We ended up only heading to the first overlook as the sun was going down and we didn’t really want to hike around at dusk at an unfamiliar park. Not because we are afraid of any wild animals getting us, but because I am clumsy enough with quite a bit of daylight. 🙂
SUMMARY
I must say, the trails on the eastern portion of the park were quite a bit steeper and a higher level of difficulty than the west side. However, the view that we did see at that first overlook we encountered was totally worth the moderate to strenuous hike.
Maybe when we come back in the future we will dedicate the day to hiking the entire eastern portion of this park as we ended up turning around early due to dusk approaching.
OTHER HIKES IN THE AREA
NOTE FROM WRITER
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Be sure to check out Deanna’s food blog when you get the chance as well! She has some awesome healthy recipes on her website that I’m sure you’ll enjoy!
Adventure On!
