Cockaponset State Forest is Connecticut's second largest state forest with 16,000 acres sprawling across 10 towns in Middlesex and New Haven counties. The rocky wooded area features a pretty lake where swimming and fishing are permitted and miles of trails for hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding. Once thick with oak, hickory and chestnut, the forest was extensively cut over in the 19th century, and great swaths were also cleared for pasture lands. Today old stone walls running through woods are reminder of the land's past use.