Fifty Foot Cliff is a glacially carved

gneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures an ...

cliff in Storrs,

Mansfield Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area (followed by Sutton-in-Ashfield). It gained the Royal Charter of a market tow ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

, with views of Eastern Connecticut. It is, in reality, just over one hundred feet tall, named more for alliterative reasons than anything else. At the top of the ledge is a granite bench in memory of filmmaker Ishmael Rosas. Fifty Foot Cliff is accessed by a trail starting at the Mansfield Historical Society and is part of the

Nipmuck Trail The Nipmuck Trail is a '' Blue-Blazed'' hiking trail system which meanders through of forests in northeast Connecticut. It is maintained by the Connecticut Forest and Park Association and is considered one of the Blue-Blazed hiking trails. There ...

. It meets up with several other trails at a cleared space known as "The Junction." Some highlights of the trail include stone walls,

cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...

glacial erratics A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betw ...

, and a large tree; called the wolf tree, with a rope swing. The Cliff is part of the town-owned Fifty-Foot Cliff Preserve, 102 acres of mostly forested land with a 1.4 mile trail. According to legend, when the cliff was devoid of trees in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, calls from the top of the bluff would carry all the way to nearby Coney Rock.

References

{{Reflist Protected areas of Tolland County, Connecticut Landforms of Tolland County, Connecticut Cliffs of the United States Mansfield, Connecticut

See also

References