Devil's Hopyard State Park

State Park · East Haddam, Connecticut

Chapman Falls drops about sixty feet over a staircase of schist ledges in a wooded gorge in East Haddam, and it is the best short waterfall walk in the eastern half of Connecticut - you park, walk two minutes, and there it is. The unusual part is in the rock at the base: cylindrical potholes, some of them several feet deep and almost perfectly round, ground out by stones spun in eddies over thousands of years. They are the reason for the name, because the colonial explanation was that the devil had burned his hoofprints into the stone while hopping across the water. Above and below the falls there are around fifteen miles of trail through hemlock and hardwood, including a vista loop with a long view east, and a small campground. It is a modest park that does one thing extremely well and asks nothing of you to see it. The catch is the season: come in spring or after heavy rain and the falls are loud and full, but by late August the water can be a trickle over bare ledge, which disappoints people who drove an hour for the photograph they had seen.

366 Hopyard Road, East Haddam, East Haddam, Connecticut, 06423, United States

Open daily year round from roughly eight in the morning to sunset, as Connecticut state parks are. Free to enter. The campground runs a summer season only and is booked separately. Trails are not cleared or treated in winter and the gorge area is closed from time to time after storm damage. There is no lighting and no access after dark.

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