Dinosaur State Park Trails

Roaring Through the Woods
Dinosaur State Park Trails, Rocky Hill
February 2016 & 2024

I walked a bit of the Blue Trail with my boys here as part of the Sky’s The Limit Challenge in 2016 and I returned 8 years later to walk the rest of the trails. For my page on the Dinosaur State Park Museum, go here. If you just want the National Natural Landmark, go here. And if you’re only into the arboretum, go here. But if you’re here to read about the trails, you don’t have to go anywhere.

2016 The Sky’s The Limit Challenge Hike

We’re back! I had so much fun completing the 2015 The Sky’s the Limit Challenge that we’re rarin’ to get going with the 2016 version. We couldn’t even wait for the snow to melt.

Just like last year, some of the challenge points are easily accessible whereas others are not. None are too crazy or difficult, but some actually do require a bit of effort. This first one in Rocky Hill? Not so much.

In fact, an able-bodied person can nab this one in under 10 minutes. Of course, you’d be lame for doing only that at DSP.

Which makes me lame.

But – and this is a big but – I’ve taken my boys to DSP several times over the years. We’ve been to the museum enough that they have it nearly memorized, and of course I’ll return some day to complete all the trails here. So I didn’t really feel all that “lame” for simply walking to the required sign and turning tail back to the car.

Especially since Damian, my TSTL 2015 special needs Super Star, refuses to wear boots and walking through snow, slush, and mud for an hour would not be too fun for any of us. (As it was, I had to carry him over certain sections of muddy puddles and slush.)

Actually, kicking off the 2016 TSTL Challenge was a challenge in itself. As Calvin ran off down the trail on the unseasonably warm bluebird day, Damian refused to budge. Perhaps because of the snow and the icy footing, but he went through his routine of Smith-Magenis Syndrome behaviors: screaming, running backwards, throwing himself on the ground in the snow and mud, punching himself in the head. You know, the typical stuff we deal with every day.

All that as a prelude to a five-minute flat walk in the woods.

Please know that I’m certainly not “torturing” my kid by taking him out to do these things. Those behaviors are very typical of his syndrome and they occur just as often at home when it’s time to brush his teeth and at school when it’s time to go to the bathroom and… everywhere. Once he gets past it, we usually have a rollicking time.

SMS makes our lives… um… interesting.

Through with the behaviors, we walked along the boardwalk through the red maple swamp and to the Arthropod interpretive sign required for the TSTL Challenge. Here’s the sign:

Actually, since I’m harping on Damian’s behaviors and such, I feel the need to mention something else. I’ve written about these little “quirks” in the past, and how, over the past couple years he’s mostly gotten over them. Damian has always had difficulty with unsteady ground and crossing streams and such, and I’ve focused some CTMQ posts on his overcoming these fears and hesitations – to the point where he’s more or less conquered them.

It’s been hugely rewarding for me to watch this happen, slowly, over the years. He’s now far more apt to yell at me to let him get through the “challenge” himself than he is to accept my help. I love that. On the snowy boardwalk, while his little brother ran back and forth and asked me if he could jump down to the icy swamp (no), Damian gingerly made his way across, holding onto both railings the whole way.

It’s a teeny tiny thing, but if you look at the pictures, you see Damian holding on the railings whereas Calvin is not.

Anyway, at the end, right before the sign, there’s a small ramp:

Damian froze. He took a few tentative test steps with the toe of his shoe – like a cat testing a puddle. He simply didn’t want to navigate down the pitch. I offered help. He told me, “No. I got it!” So we waited.

And we waited.

But he did it! All by himself. That’s my Damian.

We walked the 20 feet to the sign and I happened to snap one of the rarest pictures in existence: both boys looking at the camera and smiling! Trust me, this never happens. It made my day.

Once back in the car, we parked near the shield sign for the other required picture. “Smile!” I said, and…

Yeah, one out of two ain’t bad.

2024

Eight years? Man, time flies. I still have to pause and reflect when I find myself re-reading/editing/updating older pages on this website. And it’s not just the pictures of them as little boys, it’s the stories like I described above.

I don’t write too much about Damian and his syndrome anymore. It’s just such a part of our life, and it’s just too tiring to explain over and over. I haven’t taken him hiking in forever and probably never will again. It’s just not worth it to anyone to be honest. Those descriptions of his aggression and negative behaviors above? Yeah, well, he’s now 100 pounds heavier and inordinately stronger.

So I’m back to hiking solo like before Calvin was born and before Damian was able to “get out there.” And that’s fine. After all, who’s going to join me on a quick jaunt to Rocky Hill to trudge through a few inches of snow simply to check the remaining Dinosaur State Park trails off my list?

Exactly.

And who is going to confidently walk up to the trail head, see this sign, and continue onward into the woods?

Turns out that a lot of people would. At least, I’d guess, ten people over the course of the previous week. I just found it funny that so many snowy footprints betrayed every DSP hiking scofflaw. As for me, after waiting eight years to finally get back here to do this, there was no way I was going to delay this any further. Let’s roll.

There are about 2.25 miles of total trail here, but some of that includes silly cut-offs and inner loops and the like. I began east on the Red trail and continued around the outermost loop along the Orange Trail, then the Yellow trail south, and finally the Blue Loop west.

These trails don’t exist to test your legs or lungs. They exist to educate you through a very informative series of exhibits and signs. They exist to tire your hyper little kids out after a day of exciting dinosauring. And, frankly, they apparently exist to do something worthwhile with the acreage the state owns here.

The trails are generally flat and well-marked. However, as I continued east to the far reaches of the Orange trail, I was constantly annoyed by getting snagged on some aggressive thorns from multiflora rose bushes. In fact, as the Orange Trail makes its final loop, it circles a forest of this awful invasive plant. C’mon, state of Connecticut! Get ride of this crap. If I was getting snagged in mid-February, I can’t imagine what it’s like here in August without diligent, weekly cutting.

Towards the end of the Orange trail, there are some neat little natural cut-outs of the type of basalt that preserved the dino prints that kicked off the whole “preserve this area” thing. A couple “Geology of this area” signs help explain the event to anyone who didn’t pay attention inside the museum.

The map highlights a black oak and a red oak tree along the Orange Trail. These aren’t so awesome in the dead of winter, but they are big trees. I suppose they’re more awesome in October. Another thing that’s not super awesome is the entire Yellow trail network, due south of the museum and jutting out in between private property. Houses to the east, the Henkel Corporation to the west. Based on how few fellow vagrant hikers’ prints I saw here, these aren’t the most popular trails.

And for good reason. The yellow branch trails just… are. No signs, no views, and a little too close to backyards for comfort. There’s also a long chain-link fence section I walked along. It’s all just sort of weird all around. For what it’s worth, the trails are very well maintained and marked at least.

The yellow trails took me back to the Red, then the Blue trail. I suppose most people stick to the Blue loop here, and for good reason. It contains the cool, long elevated boardwalk sections over the red maple swamp like we walked back in 2016. It’s pure coincidence that I happened to take pictures here during the same month with the same snowy conditions eight years apart.

The entire Blue loop is about two-thirds of a mile it’s nice. Red maple swamps are nice, and the whole “dinosaurs lived largely in swampy swamps” thing is pretty cool.

I didn’t bother traipsing around the whole thing for what would be the third or fourth time in my life. It is a wide, flat, simple trail with a bunch of swamp boardwalk bridges. It’s the trail you’re going to do if you come here with your little scamps and want to walk in the woods.

And there you have it… an eight-year, 2 mile hike in Rocky Hill, Connecticut.

Joking aside, you really shouldn’t hike on closed trails. If this was a private parcel, I never would have. In 2024, the trails are open year-round, currently Tuesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., weather conditions permitting. I was there before 4 on a Saturday, but I guess the weather conditions were not permitting.