Columnist’s note: For the past 21 years, I have been exploring and writing about the wilds of Connecticut from the hills of Northwest Connecticut to the shores of Southeastern Connecticut and points in between.
A top 10 list is a subjective thing, but if you are looking for some of the best places in Connecticut to check out the long-awaited peak foliage — what there is of it — here are some of my favorite spots I’ve explored over the years.
And if you don’t make it out before foliage season ends? No worries. The view is there 365 days of the year.
Highlights: Home to one of the state’s only fire towers you can actually climb. The tower was built in 1901 on top of a small traprock ridge. The tower reaches 80 feet into the air, high above the tree line, promising beautiful views of the kaleidoscope of colors filling the hills of the Pomperaug River Valley.
There are two stone pillars marking the entrance to the park which contain stones from each of the 50 states.
From the entrance, the red-blazed main trail takes visitors directly to the tower. There is a must-see overlook about halfway to the tower that serves as a preview. A loop trail behind the tower will take visitors to a neat rock formation known as Bethel Rock. It served as an outdoor chapel for religious services shortly after the town was settled.
Directions: Take I-84 to Route 6 north into Woodbury center. Take a right on Park Road and look for the park entrance on the left.
Highlights: So you want to get a taste of how difficult the Appalachian Trail is without hiking the 2,178 miles from Katahdin, Maine, to Georgia's Springer Mountain? Well, Connecticut has 51.6 of those miles and a good place to experience it is a 1.5-mile ascent to St. John's Ledges and the 1,160-foot-high Caleb's Peak in Kent.
There are short, strenuous and steep ascents mixed in with lengthy, graded climbs. Once you reach the top, the trail levels off and hikers travel to St. John's Ledges overlook with views up and down the Housatonic River valley.
From the ledges, there is yet another ascent up to the top of Caleb's Peak. The reward is views south and west into the hills of New York. A boulder sitting on top of the peak makes a great spot to rest before a downhill return to the parking area.
Directions: Take Route 341 to Skiff Mountain Road just north of the Housatonic River. Take a right on River Road and look for the parking area on the left in 1.5 miles.
Highlights: If you are going to take a rest from a hike, there are no better places to do so than in the grand halls of a stone bungalow or a stone gazebo overlooking the colorful hillsides.
Dennis Hill is one of the best overlooks in Connecticut. A three-state view will greet visitors at the top including Mount Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts, and Vermont's Green Mountains. It's about a half-mile hike up to the top of the hill and the remains of the bungalow.
Another milelong loop trail will bring visitors to a second overlook, a more intimate look at the surroundings from a wood and stone gazebo. The overlook is at 1,522 feet, and while no huge mountain tops will be visible, the undulating hills with silos and a few homes sticking out of the yellows, greens, oranges and browns of a New England autumn is beautiful.
Directions: Route 272 several miles south of the intersection with Route 44.
Highlights: It’s hard to believe a place like this exists in a highly suburban and commercial area of town.
The park gets its name from the oldest active, continuously mounted cavalry unit in the United State, a group that dates back to 1788. Visitors can see the company's horses frolicking and galloping in the fields across Route 167.
Visitors pass underneath huge white pines on their way to a rocky climb up to the top of a craggy precipice with some of the most beautiful views of Avon and the surrounding hills.
At the end of the trail, visitors reach an open area with a jumble of rocks before them. An unmarked, but easy-to-follow trail leads up the side of the rocks and to a view south to the Hanging Hills of Meriden.
Directions: Take Route 202 west and go left on Route 167 just west of the Avon Marketplace. Follow that several miles and look for the parking area at the Avon Historical Society's Derrin House. The trailhead is to the south of the house. Route 167 is a very busy road, so use caution entering and exiting the site.
Highlights: From its craggy granite and white quartz summit, visitors can see the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island Sound, Fishers Island, Long Island, the hills of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and two nations — the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribal nations.
Lantern Hill serves as a sort of gateway to the 21-mile Connecticut Forest & Park Association’s Narragansett Blue-blazed trail that runs from North Stonington to Hopkinton, R.I. The trail travels along a narrow, craggy path covered with pine needles.
The Lantern Hill trail loop, established by the hill's current (and past) owners — the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation — is marked by red signs bearing a spear-and-feather emblem. The trail takes visitors to the top of the hill going past impressive rock formations, imposing cliffs and huge boulders. The climb is more gradual and less strenuous than the blue-blazed trail.
According to local historians, there's a place known as “the Sachem's seat” on the steepest side of the hill, where Pequot chiefs would scan their territory in search of enemy tribes and, later, English ships at sea. During the War of 1812 the hill became known as Tar Barrel Hill, when residents gathered at the hilltop and burned barrels full of tar as a warning that British warships were entering Stonington harbor.
Directions: Take I-95 to Exit 92. Follow Route 2 west. Turn left on Wintechog Hill Road just before reaching Foxwoods Resort Casino. The parking area and trail entrance is on the right.
Highlights: Visitors can either hike or drive to the top of the 1,683-foot-high peak of Mohawk Mountain.
The Connecticut Forest & Park Association’s Mattatuck Blue-blazed trail takes visitors to the top of the mountain. The peak is not exactly a pristine view with an array of several telecommunication, microwave towers and the state's ambient air quality monitoring site mixing in with memorial benches and foundations of old fire lookout towers.
But the views south and north are some of the best in the state overlooking the hills and mountains of the Catskill, Taconic and Berkshire ranges. It's what I like to call a “purple mountain majesty” view with the hills taking on a bluish-purple hue mixing in with the green tips of evergreens in the valleys below.
Directions: Take Route 4 to Allyn Road in Goshen. Turn left on Mohawk Mountain Road and look for the blue blazes of the Mattatuck Trail at a small parking area.
Whether it's Grand Vista or Chaugham Lookout, the sense of solitude is pervasive in the 3,900-acre Peoples.
The aptly named Grand Vista overlook, at 1,110 feet, gives visitors an amazing view southwest over hills and mountains with the Farmington River snaking through the valley.
The Falls Cut-off Trail — marked with blue and red blazes — leading from the banks of the west branch of the Farmington River to the Jessie Gerard Trail is about as difficult and strenuous a hiking ascent as there is in the state.
The trail passes high rock cliffs and cuts through gorges. The ascent is bearable with dozens of steps made of flat rocks or cuts in portions of the ledge.
A little farther north of Grand Vista is Chaugham Lookout. Equally stunning, the views out to the distant hills of Massachusetts include the sight of the picturesque town of Riverton, its church steeples and white clapboard houses and buildings blending in with the seemingly endless forests and hills.
Directions: The trail is located along East River Road, which can be accessed off Route 318/181.
Highlights: Even though most of the cobble is over the border of North Canaan in Ashley Falls, Mass., it is one of the finest views Connecticut has to offer. That’s because visitors take the “tractor path” south to the top of Hurlburt’s Hill, which is located in the Constitution state.
After a trip through deep forest along the Tulip Tree Trail, visitors reach the path to the view. It’s an easy hike along a closely mowed grass trail across a field filled with wooden bird boxes. You will want to walk backward because the views of the Berkshires and Taconic Mountains as you hike to the summit are breathtaking.
At the top of the 1,000-foot-high hill is a kiosk that marks the border of Connecticut and Massachusetts. The real show is the mountains, from Mount Everett and Black Rock in the northwest to the distant East Mountain and Mount Wilcox to the far-away hills of Vermont.
Directions: Follow Route 7 north from the intersection with Route 44 in North Canaan. Take a left on Ashley Falls Road just before the Massachusetts line. Take a left on Rannapo Road and a left on Weatogue Road.
Highlights: The 368-acre Macricostas Preserve offers visitors a mix of fall foliage from the swath of open fields to ridges and overlooks high above Lake Waramaug. The 4-mile-long Meeker Trail is marked with yellow blazes and winds through the fields and then to the top of the ridgeline with several overlooks along the way.
Visitors reach the overlook at 1,150 feet. It has a 180-degree view across the preserve’s fields and out to neighboring farm fields and surrounding hills. Farther along the trail is one of the finest overlooks in the state, the Pinnacle — also known as Waramaug’s Rock — which stands at an elevation of 1,250 feet. The nearly 360-degree view showcases undulating hills and mountains and the lake.
Directions: The preserve is located along Route 202 near the intersection with Route 47. Turn on Christian Street and look for the red house at 124 Christian St. The parking area and trailhead are behind the house. Visit steeprockassoc.org for a map of the preserve.
Highlights: The trip to the top of the 1,738-foot-high peak is along the Connecticut portion of the Appalachian Trail near the Massachusetts line.
The most popular spot to access Lions Head is from a parking area at the end of Bunker Hill. From the parking area, the trek to Lions Head is relatively easy.
There are two overlooks from Lions Head. The main overlook is the more spectacular of the two, looking southeast across Salisbury Twin Lakes and Washinee; northeast to Lake Riga and South Pond and into New York; and south with Prospect Mountain and Canaan Mountain. Everywhere in between is forest or field with only a hint of civilization.
A bit farther north along the AT is a second overlook. The views aren't as vast, but it's a bit mystical to look out over Bear Mountain to the north and see the distant purple mountain majesty of Mount Greylock, the highest peak in Massachusetts, looming in the distance.
Directions: Route 44 into Salisbury center. Take Route 41 and take a left on Cobble Road. Take a right on Factory Street, which merges into Bunker Hill Road. Look for the parking area on the right at the end of the road.
A Late Entry: Haystack Mountain State Park, Norfolk
I visited Haystack Mountain State Park last week. The column will be online Friday at noon. Haystack will definitely break into the Top 10. So stay tuned for that later this week. This may turn into a Top 11 list.