Wrentham State Forest

August 8, 2020 Sunny

Wrentham State Forest, in the official descriptions, “is a minimally developed area”, and it sure is. Located in the town famous for the outlets, the State Forest borders Franklin State Forest which is another “minimally developed area”.

We visited the Red Fox Trail, a 2.4-mile loop (map download), which starts in a turnout on the busy Taunton Street. It is purple-blazed, but we found it to be hard to follow. From online reviews, we heard that this trail is popular with dirt bikes, but we didn’t see or heard any dirt bikes. We did see a few families mountain biking, but other than that we did not see any other hikers.

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In the beginning, there was no shade. Then the trail became very narrow but more shaded. Some places were muddy, which is a surprise to us as it had been a very dry summer. There were some up and downs, with very modest elevation gains of about 200 ft throughout the entire trail.

We also noticed a lot of bugs and had to put on bug spray. There were many side trails and even with an app and GPS it was very hard to follow.

We followed the Beaver Pond Trail in the last stretch of the walk. We did not see a pond, but maybe a swampy area? Again, it had been dry so I would not be surprised if the pond had dried up. Towards the end there were some boulders, but overall the features of this trail were very ordinary.

• Dusty and rocky trails, with no particular sights to be seen.
• Buggy. Trails were hard to follow and deeply rutted.
• If my calculations are correct, this state park ranks approximately 1.89 stars. Thus, my generous self shall round up, bringing our rating to 2 stars.
• The trail was rocky and buggy but it was fun to kick up the dust.
• It was pretty bad and it had a lot of bugs and it was really thin and long and there was nothing good to see.

For more information: Wrentham State Forest official site.