Great Hill Recreation Area — Attraction in Acton

Beautiful area, although lots of roots and rocks, and harder to see in the fall, so be careful. Nice to have dogs off leash (under voice control), my pups had a great time. BUT the trail marking system is terrible. The blue trail has so many options and when you get to an intersection, you don’t know which way to go cause they’re all blue. Every different trail should have a different color, or at least a sign telling you which direction you’re going in. I saw ONE map telling me where I was, but it was still unclear which blue trail I needed to take to get back to the parking lot, as there were 3 ways to go and all blue. Please mark with other colors and put up more maps! It’s not safe to have vague directions. It would be very simple to change some of the blue to ...

Where Google map took me was inaccurate. Fortunately, I drove along the edge of the park area and found a small marked entrance area at the end of Kelley Road, which was just a short distance from where I'd started. Someone tacked up trail maps to the trees, which was very handy. I took the yellow trail, which loops the whole park. Regularly, there were red trails; these were spokes out away from the center of the park, leading to various other entrances. I followed each of these to the end to get some extra steps in. Completing the whole yellow loop (with the red side trails) gave me about 7000 steps plus about 20 floors of elevation change. Fairly easy trail with a few muddy patches. Pretty quiet on a...

Great Hill is a great conservation area in Acton. There are miles of well marked trails. There is also a small pond where dog owners frequently convene to allow them to run and play off leash. (An informal dog park) However, the pond sometimes has an unpleasant algae bloom in the summer. The fields are also used for soccer practice, so dogs can't run free...