Grafton Lakes State Park — Attraction in Town of Grafton

Grafton gets stars for it's excellent location within 30min driving distance of Albany and surrounding towns, beautiful ponds and forest, multiple boat access points, and decent facilities. It gets quite crowded and loud, with some picnickers playing loud music that not all might dig. And while the music is prohibited on the beach, the picnic tables literally feet from it appear exempt. This contributes to noise pollution on the beach.

Unfortunately, the beach swimming rules are too restrictive: you cannot swim in sections where there is no lifeguard on that high chair. Instead of occupying more chairs, the lifeguard kids spent the morning lounging around on body boards away from shore, forcing unsafe crowding of swimmers in a small section. Please get the lifeguards in separate chairs asap each day, at least on weekends, otherwise there is a health and safety legal liability for the park during the ongoing situation with COVID-19.

The trail around the Long Pond is relatively clean, but we noticed some litter that is not the fault of park managers but of ignorant visitors who have not learned to leave no trace. Perhaps the park could install additional no litter signs and notes of fines, and have someone walking through more regularly to pick up trash and spot violators. The water is good and the absence of motorcraft makes for cleaner water and higher quality...

Great place for a hike, and a great place to see lots of mushrooms. Hiked with my dog from the first free parking area on shaver pond road. Hiked down the fishing access trail to the shaver pond trail which is a loop around shaver pond. Exited on the fishing access trail to the Wildwood trail. That was 2.5 miles, wanted a little more distance so walked the Wildwood trail to the shaver pond nature trail and back to the car for just a little over 3 miles total. Saw lots of natural beauty and many pretty mushrooms.

All but the Wildwood trail were well marked. As for accessibility, there was some mud in a few places, but not too bad. There were several areas with large (few foot) rocks in the trail which might be difficult for some to traverse. Several areas where the trail was covered in roots which might give some trouble. Trail was mostly dirt. Did notice tire tracks in the trail so trail was good enough for a bike or motorbike to use. I only remember two short hills, max 100 yards long, so mostly flat. Wildwood trail goes along an old rock wall through a pretty area. Onx had a fork in the trail that formed what I thought was a nice loop to avoid retracing my footsteps, but it was actually just a deer path, hard to follow, so I'd avoid it and stay on the main trail, the one farther...

What a pleasant season opening day ,a short one for us we got there too late.my grandkids still had a blast although I didn't because I was just getting comfortable with a nice cold one but the sun got lower and it got a little cooler as usual up there in them mountains...still the usual few people that leave trash on the beach but all in all nothing compared to my upbringing in 'thuh' Bronx.i have to say the entertainment at the end when these poor rangers and park manager wanted to close up shop from my hindi brothers and sisters was both hilarious and very entertaining I love the music..my grandkids 4 and 6 as they tried to do the India dance..it sounded awesome echoing through the woods..these guys had these really big speakers with a little announcement over them .I don't know what he said but I had fun..good clean fun and no foul play.my grandson got a forest ranger sticker. I just watched the video and now think maybe they're not from India idk now. It was a...