Although, I've been to the Delcarte conservation area here in Franklin many times over the years, I've never walked the trails, see picture above. We'd always spend our time around the dam area, near the parking lot, fishing or looking for frogs and turtle and snakes.
Many people on the Franklin Facebook page have raved about how great the walking trails are, so I figured it was time I gave it a walk myself. Here are my take aways:
The dam area, some 1000' long, was overgrown with weeds, as was much of the walking trails. So much so that it was nearly impossible to get close to the water. Perhaps, there are DEP regulation that restrict what can and can't be cut or perhaps it's the town of Franklin just being lazy, as they've shown in SO many other areas of the town that lack their upkeep. Either way, seems if this is a touted conservation area with walking trails, they should be maintained to some level and kept open and accessible.
The dam area was littered with dog shit, I kid you not! Same on the wooded walking trails too, some even in poop bags just discarded on the side of the trail. Another example of lazy, selfish, disrespectful POS! The ironic things, in my opinion, is many of these professed dog owners are the first with their big mouths to come forward to defend this type of behavior with some silly justification as to the reasons why and they're some of the BIGGEST offenders of following the rules. For example, letting their dogs off leash - you know because their dogs are so well behaved. Never mind if others in the area are afraid of dogs or not picking up after their dog, to name a few.
Annoying families with their yelling and screaming, all of them! My intention was to get off the beaten path and away from people (ALL OF THEM!) and the noise of the every day hustle and bustle. Much to my dismay there were several groups and each had younger kids who were yelling and screaming and crying. From what I saw, they had no business being off in the woods in their flip-flops and sandals and sundresses. Of course, the parents were yelling too, as they were micro-parenting their kids - "don't touch that", "stay away from the water", "come back you're wandering too far", or the kids who starting bawling because they tripped and went down or the one person on their phone talking, etc. etc. etc.. After all, it's all about "them" with NO care for their surroundings or anyone else. I was hoping to see some wildlife but that's next to impossible with all the noise.
Instead of doing the 1.2 mile blue circle trail walk that I had intended, I did the 0.87 green diamond trail walk, then hightailed it out. I couldn't get outta there fast enough, All in all I left there very disappointed! Fairly certain it was my first and last time walking those trails.
