Lovers Leap State Park — Attraction in New Milford

Upon entering we headed to the bathroom (after an hour long drive that is always nice to see) which has no lock so it's a two-person job, one to hold the door shut while the other uses the bathroom. After that we started off, are we on the blue trail or the yellow trail? We're not sure but we'll see where it takes us. They run into each other again then they split again. Then the yellow trail runs into us again, I think they're just snaking around each other like a DNA strand. As we were wondering we came across the Indian Spring House which is a little worse for wear but you can see that during its heyday it would have been a peaceful place to stay. After a little searching we were able to find the mailbox on an unlabeled offshoot of the trail. In the mail box are notes from hundreds of people that came before us up to just a couple of days ago. Lovers leap shows you a beautiful bend in the Farmington River, then the blue trail heads back into the woods. It loops around and overall is a short trail. After we finished the short trail we head over the bridge.  Once you cross over the bridge you head up the old road to the mill. Makes for a much easier hike. After stopping at the top of the road to have a donut and look out over the river we decided to head up the red trail and see the remains of the castle. From the fireplace of the castle you can see the beautiful view that the residents had. From there you can head up the rest of the mountain which is a steep hike. At the top you can look over the entire area. The view is not as great as it is from lovers leap but it is still a nice view. From there we headed back to the car but on the way we decided to take the path under the bridge. This is the remains of the log shipping building and is a fun...

When I was a kid, this whole area was owned by Mrs. Catherine Hurd. She lived in "the Castle" during the summers (moving a bunch of her cats) and lived in a ranch home on Lover's Leap Rd the rest of the year. The property also included "The Yellow Cat Inn" ca. 1850, which had 2 outbuildings- a garage and combined stable and an outhouse at the top of the hill. There was an artisan well and a hand pump for water. No electricity, huge wood burning kitchen stove, and gravity fed oil/kerosene burning chandeliers. It was a great place to spend the summer as a kid. I only figured out what all those bedrooms upstairs were for as an adult. There were five regular bedrooms, and 2 servants rooms which had had the dividing wall removed sometime before I had stayed there. You knew they were the servants rooms because they were reached by the back stairway.

I just looked closely at the Satellite photo. Only the river rock foundation remains of the house. There was a huge covered porch that wrapped around the from the road at the front door almost to the kitchen on the back. It had an absolutely incredible view of the valley, since it was above the trees...

The bridge you cross from the main car park is pretty cool as you look down to the river and can see some distance along the valley. The ensuing trail is relatively easy but there is not that much to admire outside of autumn or spring time unless you're birding.

It's easy to go off trail and see some other nooks and crannies. Exercise extreme caution in these cases as some surfaces can be slippery for various reasons (obscured mud, ice, moss, leaves, etc). You definitely won't want to be near cliff edges in such instances.

Although we didn't walk the whole trail, the first vista was nice and impressive. Looking across the river you've just been walking alongside you see a fairly impressive cliff face too. The reason I'm keeping to 4 stars is that the castle is not impressive at all - in fact I think this needs relabelling. (I did not get to check out the...