At least one kind of public attraction still passes the ‘essential’ test: state parks.
For a quick but deep escape from the grind, you can’t do better than Madison’s Hammonasset Beach State Park. Of the park’s many attractions—the campsites, the boardwalk, the nature center, the salt marsh—the popular headliner is the two-mile western beach, where the sand seems impossibly fine for Connecticut’s scratchy coast.
sponsored by
But just to the east, past a thicketed bluff with a walking path and the Hammonasset Point overlook, lies a less celebrated asset: a “boulder lag beach,” where rocks of all sizes congregate like walruses and waves of pink-orange shells break with a crunch underfoot.
Here’s the thing, though: there aren’t that many feet walking on this beach. At least there weren’t on a moody afternoon in early spring, when a plush gray sky gradually glowed amber, then finally revealed its ember heart to an admirer far below.
Boulder Lag Beach at Hammonasset Beach State Park
1288 Boston Post Road, Madison (map)
Daily 8am to sunset; free for residents with valid CT license plates
(203) 245-2785
www.portal.ct.gov/deep/…
Written and photographed by Dan Mims. This story originally published on April 10, 2019.
