Salmon Brook Park Playground

Sometimes I need a little inspiration for a new outing with the kids, so I look to the best resource I know, our readers!

A few weeks ago we put out a question on our Facebook page asking followers to name their family’s favorite playground. We received tons of responses to our naptime request (thank you Facebook followers!) and last week I decided to try out one of the suggested playgrounds with my family (thanks for the recommendation Steff H.!).

Salmon Brook Park is located in Granby, Connecticut at 215 Salmon Brook Street. For such a large park, the entrance is rather simple and easy to miss (well at least we missed it the first time we drove by!). You can spot it, though, by looking for this sign.

This park is owned and maintained by the Town of Granby and it is huge — covering over 116 acres.

Once inside the park, there is SO MUCH to see and do. A map is below, but the park contains:

A large playground
A small, fully fenced-in playground (The Tot Lot)
A dog park
Multiple athletic fields
A swimming pond (open during the summer)
Trails and a brook
A horse exercise area (not something I would utilize, but it did lead to the kids seeing horses on our visit!)
Tennis courts
Basketball courts
A new multi-purpose building
A band shell
and more

Image from the Town of Granby Website

For this post I’m focusing on the playground areas, but I’ll also share a few snapshots of the other sections of the park as well.

As we entered the park, my kids immediately noticed the playground to our left and started yelling that they wanted to get out of the car. Well I knew from reader comments that this was actually the smaller of two playgrounds in the park and was called the “Tot Lot“. The wonderful thing about this play area was the fact that it was FULLY FENCED-IN. A perfect spot to play if your little one is a runner.

But as much as the kids wanted to play on this playscape, we had to remain focused and continue driving to the large play area. There our kids finally got a chance to get out of the car and do what they love to do: run, play, and torture each other. Ha!

The large play area was grand in scale and included so many fun, new playground features. I liked that the play space was mostly surround by a fence (there was only a small open section on the front side) and that it included a few different areas. There was a large playscape structure, small playscape structure, climbing wall, variety of swings, and covered picnic tables. The playground was fantastic and my kids remained fully entertained for almost an hour!

Look at this — a triple slide!

There was also a play structure that was designed for kids ages 2-5.

The playground had plenty of swings to choose from and kept my little swing-lover very entertained.

It also had plenty of spots where we could take a rest when needed. There were benches, picnic tables, and even a separate pavillion.

For restrooms, the only thing I saw available was a port-a-potty. Granted this was post Labor Day, so during the summer there could be other restroom options available.

But as I mentioned earlier, while the playground here was pretty amazing, there was actually a ton of things to do in this park. I’m not going to go into detail on everything today, but I wanted to share a few other pictures so you could see all there is to do.

To start with, running behind the playground and all along the back of the park was the actual Salmon Brook. It was a short walking trail down to the water area where my kids spent a few minutes skipping rocks and getting wet. Even our dog got in on the fun.

And speaking of dogs, the reason ours was with us on this outing was because the park contains a wonderful dog play area. My dog enjoyed getting the chance to make a few four-legged friends, but my kids were the ones that were really entertained, they LOVED watching all the dogs run and play. [Please note that children under the age of eight are not allowed in the dog park area.]

There was also an exercise area for horses at Salmon Brook Park and we even saw a few horses during our visit. Spotting the horses was actually a little surreal because we went over this bridge, looked out into the water and saw three horses (with riders) making their way across the brook.

During the summer, Salmon Brook Park has this swimming area open to the public.

And right next to the swimming area was the fairly new multipurpose building, a concert shell (used for a summer concert series), athletic fields, and much more.

And that was about it for the grand tour of Salmon Brook Park. It was a beautiful place full of fun adventure for my little munchkins.

We will definitely be making a return trip to this park very soon. The playground was entertainment enough, but when we added in walking trails, brooks, running across athletic fields, horse sightings, and more, you just have to plan to return. Right?

Oh and if you missed our fabulous discussion about favorite playgrounds or just want to find out what other fun outing recommendations our readers have, make sure you like Out and About Mom’s Facebook page. It is quick, easy, and totally worth it!