West Rock Ridge is an outdoor recreation resource popular among residents and visitors of the metropolitan New Haven region. Views from the clifftops span New Haven, the rural landscape to the west as far as the Berkshires, Long Island Sound, and Long Island. Most of the ridge is within the public domain as state and town park land, conservation easement, and watershed property. Housing developments are prevalent on the northern slopes of the ridge but do not reach to the summit crest. The ridge boasts a substantial network of hiking trails and park roads, cliffs, rugged woodlands, scenic ponds and reservoirs, and waterfalls. Two noteworthy hiking trails cross the ridge: the Regicides Trail which traverses the summit crest from end to end, and the Quinnipiac Trail which crosses the northern summit of the ridge and extends north over Sanford Mountain and east over Sleeping Giant. Both are maintained by the non-profit Connecticut Forest and Park Association.