river highlands state park

From the outdoor ceremony, to the classy food and drinks, dance floor indoors, just a perfect venue for a wedding!

You will miss this park the first (and maybe the second) time you try to find it. It is adjacent to the railroad tracks with a little gravel parking lot. I didn't even know it existed until yesterday and I lived in Cromwell for 7 years. There are a decent amount of trails that are marked pretty well although it gets a bit confusing at times. There are some nice river views and somewhere there is some geological thing called a "blowhole" but we didn't find it. I took my two dogs and we had a blast although it gets very steep in some places. As such, we didn't make it all the way down to the beach area as I didn't feel like being dragged by two 80 pound dogs down a rocky hill. But we will definitely return at some point to explore some more. As a previous reviewer stated, there are tons of gnats that basically swarm you as soon as you enter the trail.

Like many park entrances in CT...easy to miss. However, once you enter you'll be glad you did. Aside from the immediate greeting by a swarm of gnats and one horsefly (all surprisingly friendly) the hike was a lovely one. My companion and I seemed to be the only two on the trail and we had a very peaceful walk surrounded by the soothing green of beeches, hemlocks, pines, maples, and mountain laurel in late July. Several marked trails all seemed to lead back to where we needed to go. Along the way we enjoyed the view over a green ravine and then over the wooded bluffs overlooking beautiful views of the Connecticut River. There also appears to be a place to camp along the river according to the DEEP. Might try that next time. Will definitely return! :)

My wife and I took our dogs here for an afternoon walk. We had downloaded the trail map from the CT state park web page. There has been a lot of what seems to be unauthorized trail creation and blazing. This made for a lot of confusion as we tried to navigate once we turned away from the river walk. The trails that were supposedly on our map were poorly maintained and the blazing was almost non-existent. Still this was a beautiful little park. The walk along the ridge next to the river offered some really nice views and we had the park to ourselves. The camping area was well kept and gave us access to the river (camping is only for river travelers). All in all a sweet little park.