Falls Village Recreation Area
Falls Village offers many unique recreational opportunities, including hiking, boating, paddlesports, and visiting one of the state's largest natural waterfalls. Great Falls, located in the Upper Falls Village Recreational Area, is the highest volume waterfall in the state. FirstLight maintains an overlook viewing area of the waterfall, which also serves as the entrance to the hydro canal that supplies the power station with enough water to generate clean, renewable energy.
35 Water Street, Canaan, CT 06031 Get directions
Hiking, Boating, and Picnicking
The Falls Village Recreational area provides two separate hiking trails that connect directly into the famous Appalachian Trail. In the upper Falls Village Recreational Area, the Amesville Interpretive Trail offers a 1,000 foot long interpretive trial that connects to the Appalachian Trail and provides a brief history of the Housatonic Railroad turntable and work shop dating from the nineteenth century.
Hikers on the Appalachian Trail can access a picnic area and boaters can access the boat launch, which provides for a downstream portage takeout and allows the public to enter the upper reservoir for fishing and paddling. This location is directly across the river from the Falls Village power house.
The Lower Recreational Area provides a boat ramp that serves as the downstream canoe portage around the Great Falls. There are grills, picnic tables, a public restroom, handicapped fishing access, and a shoreline buffer garden that offers a demonstration of native plants which are ideally suited as buffers for shoreline runoff.
There is also a ¾ mile interpretive trail that shares a path with the Appalachian Trail. Parking and trail access is just south of the power house.