Clarke Outdoors — Local services in Sharon

To clarify the one star rating and to be fair...I planned my stay at Lake Waramaug specifically because I could rent a paddleboard from this company which operates a rental station right on the lake. So convenient. I even made the 50 min drive up several days before making my reservation at the campground to get details and to be prepared as I was inviting a friend to join me to paddle the lake. This would have been her first paddle experience and we were both excited to go out. Their days and hours of operation are posted right on the bldg. where one would be to rent their equipment. I spoke with the young attendants, told them which days I would be camping here, asked them to suggest best days and times as they do not accept reservations. I was told that Tuesdays and Wednesdays were slower days so chances were very good we'd have no problem getting boards. Thursday, business picks up, closer to the weekend but they felt certain we could rent if we came closer to the time they open. Cash only. I arrived, prepared with cash to paddle all three days, one of those days with a friend. Sadly there were no attendants at the rental station to rent from. Not at all. Not at any time on any of these three days. Correction... on Thursday the park manager, who knew of my plans and how disappointed I was on the two previous days, stopped by my site early afternoon to let me know there was someone now attending the rental station. Ten minutes later they were gone and probably because there were threats of late afternoon storms but had someone been there at their posted opening time at 10 a.m. that would have given us plenty of time to go out. We may make a day trip up to paddle next week. I will update my review then with, hopefully, much more...

Me and my friends have a tradition of doing an outdoor activity on the Fourth of July every year. This year we wanted to try river rafting. I saw this company and it looked reputable. Boy was I wrong. This was by far the worst experience we have had with an outdoor company. Our start time was supposed to be at 1:30 PM. It wasn’t until an hour later that we found out their van broke down. No updates, no communication—we had to find out from another participant. The other groups that were scheduled at our time got fed up and left. We decided to stick it out In order to do the rafting and speak with the owner about our displeasure and ensure we would be refunded for our trouble. They only had one girl working for them that day. Not only did we have to wait an extra half an hour for her to retrieve the raft, we then had to assist in loading it up onto the truck. We spoke with the owner who seemed out of it and did not even offer an apology or compensation for our trouble. We firmly informed him this was a horrible experience that we would not be paying for. Once we were actually on the water, the rafting itself wasn’t much better. The water level was so low at times, we would have to get out and drag it. Needless to say we were disappointed. WILL NEVER...

We had a reservation on the Fourth of July and this was the first time we had ever come here. We live an hour and a half away and we arrived early. we found out an hour in that their shuttle had broken down from another participant that was actually leaving the park. We continued to wait even after the rest of the group from our reservation had cut their losses and left. Almost another hour had passed until we saw a single overworked worker who reassured us someone would be arriving soon. Jade was unfortunately one of the only people working that day and was very kind was a great communicator. We made it clear to the owner when they finally arrived that we would expect compensation for our lost time. We still chose to raft although the water levels at times were so low that we had to get out and pull the raft ourselves. After we left we tried to call them to discuss our refund but they are still unreachable. We will not be using this rafting service again unless they can find a way to improve their communication and organize themselves. Their only saving grace was the very nice worker jade and the fact that we saw two families of deer...