Steere Hill and Heritage Park

TLDR

Steere Hill Conservation Area and Heritage Park are properties in the Town of Glocester, RI. the Glocester Land Trust manages these areas. There are about 6 miles of trails on 448 acres in the combined properties. The area allows dogs on a leash; mountain bikes, and horses. Good bird watching. Excellent trail conditions throughout the area. Would go again.

Background

I was in the area on the hike and camping trip for my previous post. This area was generally on my way home, was about the distance I wanted to cover, and I have passed by the entrance many times, so I really wanted to have a look. I’m finding that these land trust properties are among my favorites. This area had a lot of benches to sit on at the Steere Hill  part of the trail, a porta-potty, and a little platform with picnic tables that would be a great place for a nature’s classroom event.

Where to access

I parked at the entrance located at 374 US-44, Chepachet, RI, and there is another entrance at Chestnut Oak Road, Chepachet, RI at 41.892493, -71.631934. There is parking for a lot of cars at the Route 44 lot, I’d guess 30-40. There wasn’t a shred of shade in the parking lot while I was there between noon and 3, and on a hot day that might be an important consideration.

A quick note on addresses. In Rhode Island we have a confusing habit of putting place names within place names. Usually, it’s a historic village area within a town. In the case of Chepachet, it is part of the Town of Glocester, along with Harmony, Bowdish, Clarkville, Spring Grove, etc. If you’re not from Rhode Island it can be very confusing. We also like to give directions based on where things “used to be.” In this case you have Steere Farm and Cutler Farm, because that is what these properties used to be. One day you might be lucky enough to hike at Benny’s or Almacs Woods.

What to see

The highlight for me was the big open meadow on the Steere Hill loop. You don’t get many places in Rhode Island with any views from a height to speak of. Here you can just see the next rolling hill in the near distance. The field had an abundance of wildflowers. I could have spent a half-day just taking pictures of them if it hadn’t been so hot. The slight height and open fields give a good long sight line for bird watching. I saw a bright blue bird that I convinced myself was an indigo bunting, just a strikingly blue color.

Trail Review

You can do hikes of varying distances at this area. I chose to do a loop through both areas, and although AllTrails shows it as a 4.7-mile loop, my route ended up being 5.6 miles. I do have a tendency to backtrack at times. The trails are well marked, but there’s a small problem with the side trails-there are a lot of them, and they are all named. The trails are marked on the Land Trust Map, but it isn’t the easiest to follow. It is too small of an area to really get lost in, but I passed a pair of hikers who were clearly frustrated because they were unable to easily find their way back to the parking lot. I think they were following some signs that said “parking lot->” and didn’t realize that there was a second lot until running around a fair amount. I introduced them to AllTrails.

I’d say the Steere Hill trail had better conditions, more benches to stop at, and had the porta-potty, so is the easier of the two potential loops. Heritage Park is a little steeper, a little stonier, and felt a little harder. I’ll admit it is possible that I felt that way was because I was well past the halfway point, and I had hiked 8 miles the day before. The weather was in the 80’s and very humid. It was very hard to cool off even if you took a break.

Accessibility

The Steere Hill loop definitely should be doable for someone with limited mobility. The multiple benches would certainly help to give places to rest and it would be easy to get back up again. I don’t think the Heritage Park part of the loop would be quite as user-friendly, and there was only one bench on that part.

Takeaways

I’d really recommend this hike. You can hear the road noise from a few points where the trail gets close, but it retains a wilderness feel. This part of Rhode Island isn’t terribly built out, so that helps. There weren’t a ton of people, and they were spread out for the most part. I imagine this is a very popular spot on days with milder weather.