Des Plaines River Trail and Greenway Photos
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The Des Plaines River Trail is awesome! If you like more of a natural trail. This is the one you have to check out in the Chicago land area. It goes from North Avenue all the way up to Wisconsin. Anyone who is a big biker and wants to do long distance should check out this trail. Highly recommend for biking enthusiasts! Just a heads up, there are no water fountains along the path. Some of the spots can be tricky to figure out when crossings busy intersections and trying to figure out where the trail meets again at certain sections. The all trails map can be very helpful when riding the Des Plaines River Trail. read more
This is a crushed limestone trail with alternating open trails and wooded trails. After some rain the wooded areas are thick with mosquitoes and you really cannot even stop there for a moment as they will descend on you immediately and bite you ferociously. There are relatively long stretches 4 to 6 miles between road crossings and farther south the trail follows the river more closely and there are underpasses under the roads so you don't have to worry about crossing traffic or even getting off of your bike. There are plenty of access points to the trail along all of the major roads going east west near interstate 94 north of Lake Cook Road. There are a few out houses and in some rest areas there is running water and flush toilets. There are quite a few benches along the trail, many in those wooded areas but they're also quite a few out in the open sun as well so you can avoid the mosquitoes. After two or three days of strong rains however the trail can get a little bit of a washboard affect in the low-lying areas and a lot of the gravel moves into pockets and can make it hard to get through if you don't have wide tires. read more
The Des Plaines River Trail is a 56 mile tail spanning from Elmwood Park all the way up to Wisconsin. I've biked various sections of the trail, most recently, the section starting in Elmwood Park. It had been a year since my previous outing on the Elmwood Park section and I can confirm that trail conditions are not improving. If it's dry, the trail is certainly bikeable, which is its main feature: it's a bike trail in Elmwood Park. However, the river smells bad and there seems to be a lot of garbage. I doubt that bikers hurl their leftover garbage onto the trail, but someone does. It's surprising to me that people do this. Aren't there garbage cans everywhere? Just walk a block and you will run into several. People would rather hurl their leftover box of Denny's takeout into the woods instead of disposing of it properly. There seems to be a lack of pride in the neighborhood trail or respectful of someone else's trail. Back to the smells. Maybe this section of the trail has the unfortunate distinction of being on the southernmost end of the trail, the point of the river where all of industry north of Elmwood has already dumped their runoff into the river. Or it could be that some cities have more trouble than others with managing their waste. Regardless, it is a trail for all the exercise that one could want in a day. Plus, wildlife have found quality habitat. My dad and I noticed many deer along the trail and the river during our short bike ride in the middle of the day. If you want to see deer, this is the place. The trail gets better the farther north you ride. The towns do a better job of maintaining the trail or the river is not as weathered from the side effects of urbanization at that point. The trail improvement up north does motivate you keep going north towards Wisconsin where the leaves are greener and the water clearer. read more
12 years ago
12 years ago
