Grafton Land Trust

http://www.graftonland.org/openspaces.trailmaps.php

In three different days of exploration, I've come to see there is a tremendous amount of trails dedicated to the Grafton Land Trust. This N-S rectangle parcel of land has borders in Shrewsbury, Westborough, Grafton, Upton, Northbridge, Sutton, Millbury, and Worcester, with 9 dedicated parcels. I've currently only explored Gummere Woods and some of Wiliams Preserve, but a cursory look at the website map shows a tremendous amount of potential miles. Trails I've experienced at Gummere Woods are fun, non-technical trails with your typical collection of Massachusetts roots and rocks, but the scenery is also quite nice. Elevation varies across the network, but it looks like there's going to be a few years worth of exploring these trails ahead. They're also well-maintained from what I've seen.

I've ridden this area twice in the last 6 months and its pretty decent depending on the path you choose. The power line trails can get gnarly with some big rock gardens and round river style rocks. The woods are much better, mostly single track, though there is a double, an access road from the parking lot, which crosses the power lines and heads due south to Milford road. The Keith forest area is much bigger than it looks on the map and there are trails that wind though to the gas line access and then cross over into some housing developments. As another poster stated, there can be horse shit in the trail, which is unfortunate. There are a half dozen wet spots and a few creek crossings, but they are all manageable, nothing too crazy. I ride this area on my 13 year old Jamis 26" and I can handle it just fine, so a 29 is not necessary. I can't say I love this area, but I would like to play around here a bit more.

I just moved to Grafton and rode these for the first time today, I must say it's quite an impressive network. The trails themselves aren't too difficult, I'd rate them as intermediate to advanced in spots, I didn't come by anything that was "expert", mostly it's wide single track with some tight spots. The trails are marked nicely and there are loops within loops. It's definitely very rocky and rooty, there are some biggins' in there and some pretty nasty rock gardens throughout, so bad in fact that I lost my water bottle somewhere, and I get to go look for it tomorrow :-) I ride a hardtail 29'er and am not sure a hard tail 26'er would survive in there.. there are some pretty mellow trails, however, like I said the rock gardens get gnarly. There's horseshit everywhere because it's a town multi use property, it definitely gets used by horses. It's maintained by the town and you can definitely see evidence that they've been in there; fallen trees cut out of the way etc.. I moved a couple myself that had fallen recently, or purposely been put there by horse riders, there are a couple that looked that way. All in all it has good flow and I give it 4 stars for now because it's challenging enough and vast enough to not get bored, could upgrade to 5 as I explore it more if I find some gems... anyone that wants to ride in central Mass hit me up, I have no partners in crime, I can ride but I'm not shredder. Here's a link to my ride so you can see where I marked different trailheads (the one on here is wrong) https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3ExernhndJIanNjUGFKZ1dNc2c/edit?usp=sharing