Hiking West Rock Ridge State Park in Connecticut

In this episode/video we travel over to West Rock Ridge State Park in Connecticut searching for some epic views of the Long Island Sound. After finding a place to park (more of a challenge than we had anticipated) and a relatively short hike (1-2 miles), we got just the view we had been looking for.

PARKING WAS INTERESTING

First off, no that is not our vehicle parked next to the clearly marked no parking sign. 🙂 Apparently one person decided to park there and others followed. We ended up parking in a nearby neighborhood and taking a short stroll back to the entrance to begin the hike. If you come during the spring and summer though, no worries, there should be plenty of parking inside of this park.

–> West Rock Ridge State Park Trail Map <–

As mentioned in the video, you will definitely want to bring a map to this park as there are quite a few paths that cross and intersect one another. Above you will find the same map we used for our exploration of this cool park.

While you look at the map as reference, we started on the red trail near the park entrance as indicated in the map. We then took that all the way to the overlook and ended up taking the blue trail back to the green trail which led us back to the red trail…to the park entrance/exit.

We didn’t get to hike all the park on this beautiful day, but we definitely wanted to at least get visit the main overlook conquered. (It is definitely worth it.)
SWEET ROCK FACE!

Unfortunately we didn’t get any pictures of the hike along the way to the bottom of the ridge, but you can check out some of that footage in the video at the top of the blog post. The rock ridge itself is quite stunning. It sticks out like a beautiful sore thumb, ok not my best analogy. My goodness though, it definitely makes itself known to the surrounded area.

CHECK OUT THOSE VIEWS!

The best part about that little GoPro Hero5 Session is that it doesn’t have a view finder. Meaning that whenever I am filming, my eyes aren’t glued to the back of the camera to make sure I capture everything. I am enjoying the view along with you all as I film which makes the job even more fun!

I SWEAR HE LIKES TO HIKE

Although Blaze does tend to be less than emotional in most of his pictures, I assure you he is one happy pup haha. We try to bring him on as many of the hikes we can, and luckily this place is completely dog friendly. However, be careful taking your dog up the red trail near the cliff’s edge. It can get quite slippery either when wet or with loose leaves.

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BOO GRAFFITI, YAY VISTAS

Although it is a shame graffiti tends to make its way on to many rocky landscapes these days, try to look beyond it as well as the surrounding structures.

This place is already quite the sight to see, but imagine how vast the landscape would have looked before mankind made their way through. It is something I always try to do when visiting different parks that just happen to be located near cities.

OMG THOSE CLOUDS

After scurrying along the side of the cliff for a bit, the trail turned back north and we made our way up to the main overlook. I don’t think we could have gotten any luckier with the view that day. The clouds were simply heavenly.

The combination of the clouds and the view of Long Island Sound just had us staring off into the distance for a while. (Also a great opportunity for a time-lapse as found in the video. 😉 )

HEADIN’ DOWN THE BLUE TRAIL

After we got a well-earned rest and soaked up plenty of the view, we decided to continue hiking back around the west side of the park. This is where the blue trail starts or ends depending how you look at it.

It is quite an epic trail giving you a view practically the entire time while hiking it. It is also a bit easier to take than the red trail if you just want to take the hill a bit more gradually.

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JUDGES CAVE

On the way north to the green trail, we stumbled across a neat rock grouping called Judges Cave.  Now I don’t know the complete history behind this area, but apparently back in the day some people took shelter beneath/between these rocks. For a little bit more of the history, you can check out good old wikipedia: click here for more historical info.

This park was a very fun and exciting visit and we hope to come back to explore the northern section of it sometime next year. If/once we do, we will probably either turn this into part 1, or just modify this post a bit to capture more of the fun.

OTHER NEARBY HIKES

Sleeping Giant State Park

Naugatuck State Forest

Chatfield Hollow State Park

Osbornedale State Park

NOTE FROM WRITER

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Adventure On!