Brodie Park

Bro Code
Brodie Park (South) Trails, New Hartford
October 2024

West Hill Lake straddles the Barkhamsted-New Hartford line, but is mostly in New Hartford. West and southwest of it lie two scout camps: Sequassen and Workcoeman. West of them is West West Hill Road and east of the lake is, of course East West Hill Road, connected by West Hill Road. New Hartford roads are magical.

If you enter Brodie Park into your GPS, there’s a very good chance you’ll be shown the way to Brodie Park North. There’s a nice playscape there as well as an access road down to the town “beach” on the eastern side of West Hill Lake. At a different North parking area, you’ll find a pavillion and a bunch of buildings that I think are for… Cub Scouts? I’m not sure.

While this is all very nice, it’s not where you want to go if you want to go for a hike. Now, you absolutely can start your Brodie hike from the North area, you just have to walk south across West Hill Road near Niles Road to find the trailhead. I chose to drive down to find the Brodie Park South parking lot and started from there.

There were lots of Broskis around. There’s a disc golf course here and the bros like their disc golf. One guy was shirtless despite it being around 50 degrees. Bruh.

This area is known as “The Old Golf Course” and I’m going to go out on a limb and guess this used to be a golf course. There are massive pines here which are the kind you’d see along a fairway. But I don’t know…

Of course it used to be a golf course. But I wasn’t interested in that and instead made my way across the grassy field and into the woods. The trail is essentially a lollipop loop trail, with the dogleg out to West Hill Road and the loop completed across the vast field area. The trail is apparently called the Franklin P. Kearney Conservation Trail.

I originally intended to hike this place in order to walk into the Camp Sequassen trail network. This is not encouraged by New Hartford, the Scouts, or CTMQ. It’s certainly possible, and you could make for a very long and beautiful hike out of doing so, but both Sequassen and Workcoeman do not invite the public to walk their trails. So I didn’t. (In fact, I was actively not invited.)

The 200 acres of Brodie Park are enough.

The blue-blazed trail took me away from the lawn area and down a hill along an old woods road. These are nice woods. Open with a nice amount of laurel here and there. The old guide says, “trails at the far corner of the property lead down into the Cedar Swamp and it is a perfect area to hike or take a leisurely stroll.” But those trails seemed quite blocked off in 2024. These are the trails that not only take you down to the cedar swamp, but also over to the scout camp.

Instead of those side trails, I continued north along the blue trail within Brodie Park. And I’m glad I did, as this straight stretch is really cool! Rock features like a massive split erratic and some small, mossy cliffs held my attention, making me forget all about any illicit access to some scout camp trails. I turned east and began the long, gradual climb back up towards the grassy golf course area.

As I neared it, I wondered how the trail would navigate the wide open space. As I learned, it really didn’t. You’re just expected to know to go around the strip of woods and then back north to find the trail that heads north out to West Hill Road. This may seem like a silly and unnecessary walk if you parked at the South lot like I did, but if you know CTMQ, you know I “had” to walk it.

And you know what? I’m glad I did. There are creeks to cross and a nice Eagle Project bridge to boot. The trail here is decidedly different than in the other section of the park. This is a true trail, not some fancy old woods road. Rocks and roots and slippy slicks dominated my walk to the northern end.

Once there, I decided to not return via the same trail to my car. I did the road walk south along Niles Road. I think it was a good idea, but that hill up to the lot is no joke. Of course, the same hill exists when walking up the grassy open area of the park on the other side of the stone wall, but I stuck to the road.

Brodie Park is a gem and New Hartford is lucky to have it. A beach (of sorts), a pristine lake (it’s spring fed and said to be one of the cleanest in the state), a disc golf course, tennis and basketball courts, the pavilion, and a very nice trail. You don’t have to be a bro or even know Bro Code to enjoy Brodie.

CTMQ Hikes New Hartford’s Town Trails