15,000 years ago, a glacier covered Rhode Island. Explore its rocky relics in Charlestown.

CHARLESTOWN – The view from the top of the tower on the coast here would have been very different 15,000 years ago.

Rather than looking out at dense woodlands that run in all directions, you would have seen a landscape covered by thick sheets of ice that extended as far as the eye could see.

During the Ice Age, glaciers crept down from Canada and covered Rhode Island, scouring the terrain and pushing forward soil, rocks, sediment and gravel. When the weather warmed, the glaciers halted and then retreated, leaving behind a ridge line made up of all that it had been bulldozing.

One of the glaciers deposited a long, rocky ridge, called a moraine, that runs along the coastline from Long Island to Narragansett.

From the tower at the Kettle Pond Visitor Center, I could see knobs of the ridgeline and wanted to get a better, close-up look. So a hiking buddy and I drove a few miles north to the Charlestown Moraine Preserve, just north of Route 1.

At a kiosk at the trailhead off Kings Factory Road, we studied a map and learned that just north of the preserve is the Narragansett Tribal Reservation.

Rich hunting ground for Native tribes

The area, like most of Rhode Island’s southern coastline, was inhabited for thousands of years by Indigenous peoples, including the Narragansetts and the Eastern Niantics – two tribes that merged after King Philip's War (1675-1676).

According to Silvermoon LaRose, assistant director of the Tomaquag Museum in Exeter, the land was a good hunting ground because of the deer runs that extended to what is now the Burlingame Management Area.

Some Narragansett Tribe members lived along Kings Factory Road and gathered water, washed materials and played along a small brook, now dried up, that ran close to the preserve, said LaRose, who is also a Charlestown Conservation Commission member. The family of Ellison Myers Brown, known as Tarzan Brown, a legendary marathon runner, also lived along the road.

After the English and other Europeans arrived, settlers and farmers occupied the land. Some of the stone walls they built are still visible.

Later, developers planned several projects on the property. In the 1970s, the land was slated to be used for power transmission lines from a nuclear power plant at the former Naval Air Station. But the Narragansetts and others objected, and the plant was never built.

More recently, there was a proposal to build 200 low- and moderate-income housing units on the property. Another plan would have erected two large wind turbines on the triangular-shaped parcels on both ends of the land, said Lynn Macalister, chair of the Charlestown Conservation Commission.

But the Town of Charlestown stepped in and acquired 78 acres in 2013 for $2.1 million from a private landowner, financed with a state open-space grant and town bond funds. The Charlestown Conservation Commission now manages the preserve, and trails have been cut to form two loops in a figure eight.

Trails marked by glacial erratics, mountain laurel and great views

The trail starts out on a red-blazed trail on the moraine, with a drop-off on both sides that is steep on the right. After a few steps, the trail forked. We went left and followed the moraine above a ravine on the right and Kings Factory Road on the left. I noted bird boxes attached to oak trees along the path.

The trail soon runs within sight of Route 1, and we heard quite a bit of traffic noise. I wondered if some of that would be muffled when the leaves fill in on the trees. Across Route 1, we could see pastureland and farms, and I heard a rooster crow. We also spotted what looked like gravel pits or quarries and pools of green-tinted water. Trucks hauled their loads on the far banks.

Large erratics mark both sides of the trail. The giant boulders were carried south on top of the glaciers and then dropped when the ice receded.

When we came to a junction, we took the blue-blazed trail that continued south and was flanked by dense stands of mountain laurel. Some of the leaves were spotted with a blight I’ve seen in other parts of the state. On the left, we also passed a wire fence, with wooden and stone posts, that separates state property from town-owned land.

A challenging climb with a great payoff

The trail then twisted, climbed and turned rockier, and we watched our footing. The elevation gain through that section of the trail is only 88 feet, but the ups and downs over the ridgeline made it seem like it was more than that before we reached a high point.

At the top of the ridgeline, we paused and scanned the landscape. Before our hike, I had read that the moraine forms the southern boundary of the Pawcatuck River Watershed, which includes Deep Pond, Schoolhouse Pond and Pasquiset Pond. North of the moraine are flat-top mounds and depressions called kettle holes that were formed by chunks of ice that broke off the receding glaciers.

Looking to the east and beyond Route 1 along the coast, we could see the outwash plain, a gently sloping deposit of sand, gravel and sediment called till that was flushed from the front of the glaciers by runoff streams and meltwater. Also visible were Ninigret Salt Pond, the ocean and, in the distance, the outlines of Block Island.

One of the earliest glaciers during the Ice Age extended into the ocean, and when it stopped and retreated, it left a ridgeline, called the Ronkonkoma Moraine, that stretches from Long Island to Block Island and east to Martha’s Vineyard. Other glaciers left moraines in Southern Connecticut and on Cape Cod.

After a short rest, we continued on the trail as it sloped downhill and made a sharp turn to the west, flattening as it passed through extensive stands of ferns and low bush huckleberry. Mixed in with the oak trees were some juniper and white pine.

What kind of wildlife are you likely to see?

According to hikers’ reports, the forest supports nesting and migratory songbirds, raptors (red-tailed hawks, great horned owls and ospreys), mammals (shrews, voles, squirrels, gray and red foxes, coyotes, fishers and white-tailed deer.) It is also known for resident and migratory bat species.

I spotted several vernal pools, shallow depressions in the earth that collect water and serve as breeding grounds in the spring for frogs and salamanders. On an early April morning, however, all was quiet. Even the noise from Route 1 seemed distant as we walked further inland.

The blue-blazed trail eventually looped east and then north before reaching a junction with the red-blazed trail. We walked left and up and down through tunnels of thick groves of mountain laurel. The leaves here were shiny green and healthy. By the end of May or early June, the laurel will bloom with white flowers.

We followed the red-blazed trail back to where we'd started. In all, we walked about two miles over 90 minutes.

We drove back to the tower at the Kettle Pond Visitors Center in the Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge, which is not part of the Charlestown Moraine Preserve, for one last look at the ocean, barrier beaches and the ridge. I’ve previously hiked on moraines at the Dr. John Champlin Glacier Park in Westerly, the Francis C. Carter Memorial Preserve in Charlestown and the DuVal Trail in South Kingstown. And I’ve learned something from each visit.

But the part of the Charlestown Moraine Preserve where I hiked may be the largest undeveloped section of the ridge. It’s worth a look and will give hikers a better understanding of how Rhode Island’s rocky terrain was carved out and formed by glaciers tens of thousands of years ago.

Charlestown Moraine Preserve

Access: Off Route 1, take Kings Factory Road. Drive a quarter mile to the trailhead on the left.

Parking: Available in a dirt lot.

Dogs: Allowed, but must be leashed or under voice command.

GPS Coordinates: 41.38616, -71.66631

Kettle Pond Visitor Center

Access: Off Route 1, take the Kettle Pond Visitor Center exit.

Parking: Available in a lot.

Dogs: Allowed, but must be leashed.

Difficulty: Easy to moderate with some steep climbs on rocky ridges.

GPS Coordinates: Trailhead: 41.36744, -71.68557

Walking Rhode Island book events

John Kostrzewa’s book, “Walking Rhode Island: 40 Hikes for Nature and History Lovers with Pictures, GPS Coordinates and Trail Maps,” is available at local booksellers and at Amazon.com. He’ll sell and sign books after the following presentations:

Wednesday, May 15: Walking for Your Health, with Dr. Michael Fine, William Hall Library, Cranston, 6:30 p.m.

Thursday, May 23: Greene Public Library, Coventry, 6:30 p.m.

Thursday, June 13: Rhode Island Night, with Martin Podskoch, author of “Rhode Island Civilian Conservation Corps Camps,” sponsored by the Association of Rhode Island Authors at Borealis Coffee Company, Bristol, 7 to 9 p.m.