Any outdoors enthusiast can follow highway signs to one of Connecticut’s state parks, but there’s a special kind of joy in finding a hidden gem without the help of signs or GPS apps. Thousands of motorists every day speed past two such properties just off Route 85 in Salem.

The Salem Land Trust’s directions to the Big Brook Gorge Preserve tell you to look for the solitary telephone pole just before the Colchester town line. Sure enough, there was the lonely pole right outside my passenger side window as I rolled past without seeing any obvious trailhead or parking area. After a U-turn a few feet into Colchester, I found the grassy pull-off on the east side of the road and a small wooden sign pointing to the hiking trail.

The preserve’s main trail is a red-blazed out-and-back that descends into the titular gorge. The brook isn’t especially big, but the walls of the gorge are, providing a nice natural barrier to shield you from the traffic noise. On a recent morning outing, the only audible sounds were the gurgling of the brook, the drum of a distant woodpecker, and the brief wing flaps of a hawk disturbed by a two-legged intruder.

A quick round-trip on the red trail is a little more than half a mile of mostly flat terrain with a few gentle hills. The 0.3-mile blue loop takes you up a moderate slope through twisting mountain laurel to the top of the gorge. Both trails are well marked and clear, save for a few downed trees leftover from the winter’s storms.

A quick hike through Big Brook Gorge serves as a nice warm-up for a trek through nearby Smuggler’s Rock Preserve. Starting from the trailhead at the end of Salem Ridge Drive (don’t park in the bus turnaround), hikers are treated to two miles of trails on more than 100 acres recently preserved through donations and grants to the land trust. The trails are three connected loops blazed in red, orange and yellow, with a blue-blazed spur trail leading to Round Hill Road.

After a small stream crossing halfway down the red trail, an enormous oak tree dwarfs the much younger forest surrounding it. Given the girth of the massive trunk, one can assume this majestic tree stood alone in a farm pasture long before most of us were born.

The yellow trail takes hikers up a steep rocky scramble to a scenic overlook and a collection of rocks left by retreating glaciers. With no leaves on the trees, there is a view of the center of Salem to the southwest. A few feet later, a sign points downhill to “Balanced Rock,” a more accurate title for the rock formation that no doubt has inspired some local folklore. After marveling at a table-like boulder improbably perched atop two smaller rocks, hikers can follow their footsteps back for a direct route to the trailhead or explore the rest of the preserve’s winding loops for a slightly longer outing.