By timbee in August, 2009
The trail from Park Rapids northeast to Walker is superb. It's smooth & almost all the small towns have some amenities (picnic tables, benches, restrooms, etc.). The tiny town of Dorset has half a dozen good restaurants & touristy attractions. The scenery is great & the trail pretty much flat & smooth. Definately worth a ride.
Once you get past Walker the quality of the trail (not the scenery) diminishes. The trail cris-crosses Hwy 371 a couple of times & disappears onto a road shoulder for several miles with poor signage. It gets very bumpy & chopped up. No amenities north of Walker. You can go into Cass Lake & then take city streets to get to the MiGiZi trail which is hilly & curvy with some nice scenery. North of Walker this trail will eventually fork off to Bemidji as the Paul Bunyan. Much of it is already done on the Bemidji end.
By bmullin in June, 2009
This trail starts at a nice park in Park Rapids. Much of this aphalt trail is in the woods and runs far enough away from the highway to be very quiet and peaceful. The trail is mostly flat from Park Rapids until going slightly downhill into Walker. There are several small towns right on the trail from Park Rapids to Walker that have places to get a bite to eat or an ice cream cone. From Walker the trail runs near Leech Lake giving occasional views of the lake and lake homes around the lake before following along beside Hwy 371 into Cass Lake. The trail dead ends a couple of blocks short of Hwy 2. There isn't any sign to say you have reached the end of the trail, it just ends and there isn't any parking nearby, except along residential streets. I hope that someday they extend this trail to more of a distination, such as the nearby Norway Beach Recreation Area in Chippewa National Forest.
By Ken Gummer in October, 2007
"The scenery is great and the trail surface is fair, but don't expect any of the state run bike rest stops to have any services. No picnic tables, no water no trash cans. Shame on you Minnesota"