[1] West Rock Ridge is popular for recreation and known for its microclimate ecosystems, rare plant communities, and expansive views from cliffs that tower up to 500 feet (152 m) above the surrounding landscape.

[4] Nineteenth-century landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church portrayed the ridge in 1849, and George Henry Durrie painted it numerous times.

This act gives the DEEP the right of first refusal to purchase private land within the West Rock Ridge conservation area and to permit increasing the size of the park, which is about 1,820 acres (7.4 km2).

[5] West Rock Ridge, located in the Connecticut municipalities of New Haven, Hamden, Woodbridge, and Bethany, is 1 mile (1.6 km) wide at its widest point.

The rock, which formed 200 million years ago during the late Triassic and early Jurassic periods, frequently breaks into octagonal and pentagonal columns, creating a unique "postpile" appearance.

The ridge is the product of a huge feeder dike that supplied several massive lava flows hundreds of feet deep that welled up in faults created by the rifting apart of North America from Eurasia and Africa over a period of 20 million years.

Erosion occurring between the eruptions deposited deep layers of sediment between the lava flows and around the dike, which formed sedimentary rocks.

[1] West Rock Ridge is an outdoor recreation resource popular among residents and visitors of the metropolitan New Haven region.

The ridge boasts a substantial network of hiking trails and park roads, cliffs, rugged woodlands, scenic ponds and reservoirs, and waterfalls.

[11] West Rock Ridge State Park occupies most of the ridgeline as well as the undeveloped Lake Wintergreen on the east side of the mountain.

The park is open daily from 8 a.m. to sunset for a variety of recreational uses, including hiking, bicycling, fishing, car-top boating, horseback riding, dog walking, picnicking, and other passive pursuits.

Regicides Drive to the South Overlook and Judges Cave is open daily to vehicle traffic from the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend through the last Sunday in October.

[12] The town of Woodbridge owns and manages the Bishop Estate and Darling House Trails, a 160-acre (0.65 km2) property on the west flank of the ridge.