West Barnstable Conservation Area
TLDR: West Barnstable Conservation Area, Town of Barnstable Conservation Commission. 21 miles of trails on 1200 acres. Excellent trail conditions, very accessible. Not well marked but very easy to stay on the trail. Dogs allowed, hunting allowed, mountain bikes allowed – this is primarily a bike track. Multiple hikes, routes vary from 1 mile to 10 miles. Would go back but this is probably crazy during the peak Cape Cod tourist season.
I was looking for a little longer trail to hike today. There are a handful of conservation areas that I want to explore on Cape Cod, but I’m really averse to the traffic to get out there during the tourist season. I have a month or two to investigate a few before the season kicks into high gear.
One problem with coastal hikes is that the lovely cool ocean breezes that bring people here in droves during the hot weather can be absolutely bone chilling in the winter. There are a few options for less exposed hikes further inland that offer a little shelter from the wind. Given the forecast of 40’s and wind gusts up to 30 miles an hour, this one fit the bill.
None of the information for this area is user friendly. It’s nice to have a little description and a historical discussion to go with the basic stats of trail length and area size. I was really curious how they managed to keep such a large piece of property undeveloped. The best description of the area I found was on a website called trailforks.com. This looks like it’s a version of Alltrails for bikes.
The town website has some trail information but it was hard to follow. In addition to the map of West Barnstable, there are trail guides for 12 different named trails around the town. You can match them up with a GIS based map, but this would probably work better if you already know where you’re going. The areas don’t have any data to go with them except the parcel manager. They don’t even have the area name attached to the spot on the map, unless it is on the map layer underneath which is frustrating.
There are six parking areas shown on the map and I decided on the one at 1590 Race Lane, Barnstable, Massachusetts, based on the hike I was planning for the day. I ended up doing 4.7 miles and it took me about 2 hours. There is parking for about 20 cars, and there were 10 there when I pulled in. Half of them had bike racks on the back, so I was a little worried about bike traffic. There is a very nice seating area at this parking lot. It has a small covered picnic table area and a few Adirondack chairs to enjoy. If it hadn’t been so chilly, I would have sat there to eat my lunch, but I chose the warm car instead.
At the start of the trail there was a family with a toddler and a few dogs off leash that I quickly caught up with. It was easy to adjust my route to give them some space. In total I saw 6 groups of people, 3 cyclists (so not really a lot), a trail runner with a dog, and 2 other dog walkers. It did not feel crowded at all, but it was a pretty chilly day despite the sun shining. It might be busy even in winter on a warmer or less windy day. None of the dogs were leashed but they kept their distance, so at least they were well trained. I didn’t see any dog poop on the hike at all, so the owners are diligent here. The cyclists were very respectful. I heard them coming and got off to the side of the trail for them, so that probably helped.
The trail conditions were excellent. Cape Cod is a big pile of sand, so the soil drains really well. There were no muddy stretches on the route I took. There are exposed roots in some stretches, some short areas of cobbles, and it is steep in spots so footing can be a little tough if your mobility isn’t great. You could easily choose one of several routes in this area that is limited to smooth dirt roads if you need to. From the Race Lane parking lot the accessible hiking option would be an out and back route on Farmersville Road.
The trails are not well marked. It is difficult to stay on a chosen route because although the trails are well cleared, it’s hard to decide which one you should take if there are several choices. There were almost no blazes, and no symbol or color system to keep routes straight. In most areas with heavy bike traffic, the bikes frequently cut new trails, and this is no exception. There were a number of trails not on the Alltrails app or on the published map linked above. They do have a system for figuring out where you are that is well suited for bikes. There are several prominent blue signs that had a W, SE, E, N, W, NW, or NE followed by a number. They are all oriented so that you are facing roughly north when you are reading them. If you bring a copy of the map, you can use them to navigate because those points are all marked on the map. This system is not ideal for hiking, because you might have to walk a good distance to find a sign, and could have to backtrack quite a bit once you got oriented in the direction you need to go.
This is a pretty large area and doesn’t have private property abutting it except in a few places. It did feel like wilderness. There was no road noise at all, but the wind might have masked it. I didn’t go in the area that borders the highway so take that with a grain of salt. You probably should have some basic safety equipment with you because of the size and remoteness. I’ll cover basic gear in a post sometime soon. In this case an emergency blanket, a first aid kit, and something to signal for help if you get hurt would be smart to carry because you can be a good distance from help. Hunting is allowed in this area so blaze orange is an absolute must when hiking here during hunting season. Most people weren’t wearing it today. Maybe it’s because hunting isn’t allowed on Sundays, but that’s not something that you should really count on.
This was definitely a nice place to spend a sunny but chilly Sunday. Mountain biking here is a probably a blast. There’s really no view or payoff destination here. If you hike here, it really just for the joy of the journey through the woods. That’s what life is all about anyway.
