Great Swamp is a “Management Area” that allows hunting, it’s 3,000 acres. I was there in early May, which seems to be one of the hunting seasons, so I wore orange. It is indeed swampy, but the trails are dry and pleasant; many of the trails are old dirt roads.
Great Swamp is popular with bird-watchers. It has a few NativeAmerican stone-structures, but nothing special, nothing “to write home about.” I followed the route described in Ken Weber’s Walks and Rambles in Rhode Island. Weber put Great Swamp first in his book, evidently it was a favorite of his. Below is a route similar to Weber’s but it includes a mistake, which I marked with a green pin; the mistake turned a 5.5-mile walk into a longer walk; I turned right when I should have turned left, and made a circle.
The trail is grassy at times, so ticks could be a problem. The highlight of the walk, in Ken’s view, is a long dike, built to hold back the water, and create a shallow pond. Since the dike is open and exposed, you might want sun-cream and a wide hat. Below is a picture of the shallow pond, and the trail atop the dike.
Another highlight of the walk is a view of Worden Pond, which is 1,000 acres, the largest natural pond in Rhode Island, and the source of the Pawcatuck River (the Pawcatuck River flows out of the northwest of Worden Pond, along the trail but probably not visible from the trail).
Great Swamp is on the western edge of South Kingstown, near the towns of Richmond and Charlestown.
In December, 1675, Great Swamp was the scene of one of the biggest battles of King Philip’s War. There’s a large, imposing monument to the battle; you can’t reach the monument from the trail, but you can drive to it. It’s at the end of a dirt road, the road is blocked by a gate, so you walk .75 miles to the monument (1.5 miles round-trip). It’s a pleasant walk on a wide, flat, unpaved road. On my map, I put a red pin on the monument, a black pin at the gate where you park. Below is a picture of the monument.
Click here for a lecture on the Great Swamp Fight.