Descriptive Essay: The Seven Falls State Park

The Seven Falls State Park, is a park located in Higganum, Connecticut. It is right along the border of Middletown and Haddam. This side of the town is home to many tree-infested areas and countless streams connecting it to the Connecticut River. The entrance to the park is off of Saybrook Road. The parking lot takes up about a quarter of the land, which makes me think of this as more of a commuter lot than anything. The parking lot is made from black gravel and is gated by recycled telephone poles. As you park your car, you immediately can tell it is Winter. The air is crisp, showing my breath as I cough from seasonal allergies. I immediately throw my hands into the pocket of my hoodie, bow my head, and hop over the fence to the field. As I stop and scan the land i realize how dead it is.

To the right is the roadway, which is separated from the park by a steel guardrail.

The road is higher than the land around the falls so there is a small hill. The hillside is full of trees stripped of all their leaves except for the evergreens which are still look like they're holding on to last of their pines. The main area of the park is no more than a wedge of land covered in moss. There is little grass growing out of the ground in the areas that aren't walked on. There are also some trees and tree stumps around the land. I was confused to why there would be tree stumps, seeing that this is a state park and should be as untouched as possible. I continued walking, still with my head as close to my shoulders as I humanly possible. Neighboring the stream is a few ugly concrete picnic tables along with small fire pits. The fire pits are essentially cinderblocks with one metal rack on top but look like they've only been used a number of times. I also thought that who would actually want to cook something so

unsanitary.
Looking across the stream the first thing you see behind the beautiful waterfall is the unpleasing power lines mixing with the forest. These power lines kill the rest of the scenery only making this park look even more dead than it already is. The lines soon stretch behind the hill and continue deeper into the forest. Standing at the end of the park along the water, I see the rest of the forest with its floor entirely covered a few inches deep with leaves. The trees along the water are green, but behind that is dead straight towering trees which finally stop at another tall hill about football fields length back.
Lastly, I finally focus on the rushing water about to reach the falls. The stream begins under the roadway from a rectangular, man-made tunnel. From there is flows into a heap of boulders. Looking at the falls makes me imagine someone holding a pile of rocks then separating their hands letting the boulders fall into the center of the stream. The water somehow finds its way with the help of gravity through the small openings between the rocks. The water has also moulded itself pathways on the rocks from thousands of years of erosion. There are seven smaller falls, each with a pool of slower moving water trying to find its way to the next gap in the rocks. After the last fall the stream begins to rush faster, still dodging the tips of boulders and random grass medians emerging through the surface of the stream. As I step back, I realize that the only nice part of this whole park is the water, the rest just representing the deadness of the Winter Season.