Date visited: 6/5/2021

It was "Trail Day" when we hiked this one, but fortunately it wasn't too busy. This state park has a number of challenging trails. Most are too challenging for small dogs. We hiked the one called "Millington Trail". It's a 2 mile trek that features a 250 foot climb at the beginning. Much of the trail has almost become a stream. It was very muddy in places. There are a lot of stream crossings as well, and one where the bridge was closed but we crossed anyway. We did some side excursions to the waterfall (Chapman Falls) and the new covered bridge, adding another mile to our route for three miles total.

More Images

Date visited: 2/20/2021

This is another cool Connecticut State Park, located in the towns of Lyme and East Haddam. Most of the park is in East Haddam, but the castle itself is located in Lyme. There are some hiking trails here too, but we didn't explore all of them.

Date visited: 3/20/2022

It was a bit confusing as to what this place actually is called. I think the main area is Harris Reserve, but we parked at Captain G. Comer Memorial State Park, which seems to just be a parking lot with some picnic table. The town property starts on the other side of the stone wall. This was pretty much just a basic loop trail through an uninteresting section of woods.

More Images

Date visited: 3/20/2022

This was the nicest of the four places we visited on this day. We walked the "red loop," which is a mile and a half loop through the woods. We did the loop clockwise, so we hiked the section near the brook toward the end. This part of the trail was really nice, and there are a few places where we got down to the brook and were able to take some nice photos.

More Images

Date visited: 12/20/2022

We hiked a loop trail that incorporated both the Upper Vista and Lower Vista secnic spots. We took a left at the start of the trail and climbed the hill to the Upper Vista first. The trail here is very wide and easy, despite about a 200 foot climb. This part of the trail was not that steep. The view from the upper vista is excellent. The photos don't do it justice. It was actually quite hard to take pictures because I was shooting into the sun. The next portion of the trail is more of a regular wooded trail, and not as wide. This section headed straight down. It was a very steep descent. So steep in fact that I slipped in the mud and fell on my rear. It was really the only muddy spot on the trail, but it happened to be the steepest part of the trail. Thankfully, only my pride was hurt. More importantly my camera and phone did not break! I landed in the mud and was a mess though! Mandy and Lexi had no issue. We stopped at the Lower Vista before resuming the once again wide trail that completes the loop. Toward the end of the loop, we took a detour on a connecting trail that leads to Sunrise State Park. This property used to be a resort of some sort, but now just open park land. We hiked a good three miles total on a bright sunny but chilly afternoon.

More Images

Date visited: 12/27/2022

This was a fun two mile loop on another challenging trail. I know it's impossible, but it seemed like we went up way more than we went down. The trail was well marked and maintained, although rocky in places. The weather was disappointing, as the forecast called for sun, but it was overcast throughout. But that didn't put too much of a damper on this fun hike.

More Images