Distance: 5 miles (loop trail) Elevation Gain: 75-100 ft Hike Time: 2.5 hours Difficulty: Moderate Trail Condition: Mixed Surfaces Hike Type: Loop
How to Get There: Rte. 495, east to Rte. 110, north to Rte. 25A, west to West Neck Road, north to park. The park is open year round from sunrise to sunset. Admission: April thru November vehicle use fee in effect, Empire Passport accepted. Hours of collection change throughout the season, please call for details.
General Description:
Caumsett State Park is
located on Lloyd Neck, a small peninsula that projects northward from the south
shore into Long Island Sound. Caumsett, is a Matinecock Indian name, which
means "place by a sharp rock." Caumsett offers exceptional exposures of
Pleistocene glacial deposits and features related to shoreline development along
Long Island Sound. A trip to the shore involves about a five mile circuit hike
along park roads, trails, and the gravel covered shoreline.
From the parking area walk along the park road to the Marshall Field House. In 1921, Marshall Field III, a wealthy newspaper publisher, purchased 1,750 acres of farmlands, woodlands, meadows, salt marsh, and rocky shoreline. He built a sprawling English-style estate. The house is situated on top of a mound of the Harbor Hill moraine.
Just to the west of the house, a park road descends down the moraine to the shore next to a freshwater pond. From this point, walk westward along the coast for just under a mile, taking time to examine the structures exposed in the shore bluffs and the various kinds of rock types represented by the pebbles, cobbles, and boulders that litter the shore.
Near the base of the cliffs are exposures of the Late Cretaceous Magothy Formation. This sedimentary unit is exposed in numerous places along the shoreline of Long Island Sound. The exposures in Caumsett consists of a light gray to brownish sandy clay with lenses of lignite. Unlike the Magothy exposures in New Jersey, there is no amber in these exposures. However, occasional partial leaf impressions and wood are exposed as the sticky clay dries and cracks along bedding surfaces.
The bluffs of glacial till consist of both unstratified till and stratified outwash gravel deposits, particularly along their western exposures. This stratified gravel displays partial sorting characteristics of running water. Where the unstratified section is typical moraine, the stratified gravels probably represent the deposits of a stream channel flowing beneath the ice front deposited during a stage of melting.
The tidal range along the north shore is approximately seven feet, and as a result shore currents can be particularly strong, especially during nor'easters. Waves during high tide are gradually carving back at the poorly consolidated glacial deposits exposed in the cliffs. For this reason it is quite dangerous to attempt to walk along the top of the sea bluffs. Wave and tidal energy is reworking the glacial sediments, and building a sand pit that extends westward for over a half mile beyond the base of the sea cliffs. The gravel beach ridge forms a protective cove around a salt marsh drained by tidal creeks.
While walking along the shore, note the different kinds of rock transported to this location by the continental glacier. Most of the rock consists of foliated or banded gneiss, schist, and granite derived from the Western Connecticut Uplands. There are also fragments of basalt and red sandstone of Connecticut River Basin origin. An intriguing addition is the occurrence of well-cemented ironstone conglomerate. No such deposits are known from the Connecticut region. These deposits probably represent the remnants of coastal plain-type ironstone-cemented gravels that were eroded away by the advancing glaciers.
Walk back to the parking area by the road intersecting the western end of the beach.