Beach Glen Trail

Dogs No Dogs

Features River/Creek · Wildlife

There is no parking at the trailhead off Meriden Road, however there is parking at the end of the trail off Lower Hibernia Road which is also the trailhead for Four Birds Trail and Hibernia Brook Trail. If you choose to park here, you'll need to turn around at the other trailheads, hike down Main Road where you'll enter a commercial parking lot. Straight ahead at the back of the lot is the trail entrance. Be respectful in this commercial lot. There is private property and no trespassing signs.

This trail seems best hike as an out-and-back starting and ending at the trailheads to Four Birds Trail and Hibernia Brook Trail. This trail is well marked with painted blue blazes that are frequent and hard to miss. I don't imagine it's easy to get lost on this trail. The ascent is steeper coming from Lower Hibernia Road than it is if you approach it from Meriden Road.

From Lower Hibernia Road/Main Road off Green Pond, the trail begins mostly in a marshy low lying area with several wood plank river crossings, views of Graffiti Cliffs above, and a couple ponds off Hibernia Brook. There is a very enjoyable but brief, rocky spine ascent and descent off the wide dirt trail which can be easily missed but is worth doing. Soon after, the trail will open up and you'll enter a mountain bike and/or dirt bike track with bank turns and undulations before the trail narrows and becomes wooded again. Though this section was built for two wheels, it's still plenty fun on two feet instead.

From here the trail slowly ascends to the highest elevation of the hike on what is mostly a singletrack, rocky trail with a fair share of S-turns and switchbacks. The trail gets increasingly rockier so you'll need to keep your feet up to avoid tripping. Every so often there are mountain biking features. After the peak elevation, the trail stays rocky for a section but thins out and the trail widens a bit as you get lower and encounter a few wood plank stream crossings. Towards the end of the hike, Beach Glen Trail overlaps with the red-blazed Meriden Trail. The trail terminates at the trailhead off Meriden Road. Here you can connect with an orange-blazed trail across the street.

There are very loud frogs in the marshy sections about 0.5 mi from Lower Hibernia Road.
At about a mile from the trail end, I noticed some narrow, singletrack sections skirted by Mountain Laurel.