Hanging Hills
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The Hanging Hills are a 1,000 foot high broken escarpment of traprock where Metacomet Ridge bends eastward across the Central Valley, just north of Meriden, Connecticut. Scour by moving glacial ice has plucked away the basalt from the steep southern end of the crest of the broken ridge, creating the overhanging cliffs. These scenic mountainsides north of Meriden are a nature preserve, watershed area, and parkland (Hubbard Park). Castle Craig is a small stone tower built in 1900 on the mountain top overlook on East Peak. The tower is a popular destination for those making the two-mile hike to the ridge top. Perhaps an even better view is possible from a slightly higher overlook at the southern tip of West Peak. (This overlook area is along the trail just east of a radio tower parking area). The views from either of the overlooks are extraordinary. From the top of the ridge on a clear day it is possible to see most of the Central Valley region, Long Island Sound, and the distant higher peaks of the highlands throughout southern New England.
The cap rock of the Hanging Hills escarpment is the massive Early Jurassic Holyoke Basalt which is nearly 700 feet thick. The exposures along the ridge tops display an irregular polygonal columnar jointing pattern that formed as the massive volcanic surface flows gradually cooled. Most of these fractures are tightly cemented by minerals that formed long after the flows were buried by younger sediments. The tell-tale grooves and scratches from rocks embedded in the bottom of the glacier are still visible in patches on the barren bedrock along the cliff tops. The Early Jurassic Shuttle Meadow Formation (red beds) and the Talcott Basalt crops out along the forested hillsides at the base of the ridge. In the Meriden region, numerous northeast-trending normal faults offset the volcanic flows and intervening sedimentary rocks. Several of these faults break the Metacomet Ridge north of Meriden. Stream erosion and glacial ice carved canyons along these faults, dividing the ridge into the finger-like promontories of the Hanging Hills (West Peak, East Peak, South Mountain, and Cathole Mountain, west-to-east respectively.). Merimere Reservoir was built in the fault-controlled valley between East Peak and South Mountain.
Major Armstrong, who invented FM radio and who was a network radio pioneer used West Peak for the location of one of the first FM radio broadcasts in 1939. His original 70' tall radio mast is still there. Currently West Peak is home to six FM broadcast stations, including WPKT, WWYZ, WKSS, WDRC-FM, WPHH and WHCN.
