Find the top rated trails in Barrington, whether you're looking an easy walking path or a long bike trail, you'll find what you're looking for. Click on a trail below to find trail descriptions, trail maps, photos, and reviews.
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The Pike River Pathway is a short trail on both sides of the reconstructed Pike River in the Village of Mount Pleasant. The path is convenient to several neighborhoods in the community. Birds, frogs...
The Waubonsie Trail links Boulder Hill and the Village of Oswego via a greenway corridor within a residential community. The eastern trailhead is in Jaycee Park, which offers a playground, picnic...
The Charles Street Community Path offers a neighborhood route through southeastern Rockford, connecting residents to CherryVale Mall on its eastern end. On its western end, Alpine Park is just north...
The Des Plaines River Trail runs alongside the Des Plaines River for just over 56 miles, protecting watershed habitat and forestland through much of Lake and Cook Counties. The trail is a natural...
The Randall Road Bike Trail offers a 4-mile paved north-south route along its namesake roadway in a suburb west of Chicago. A highlight of the journey is the trail's passage through the LeRoy Oakes...
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Illinois’ Centennial Trail runs through parts of three suburban counties from Willow Springs Road to Romeo Road/135th Street southwest of Chicago. The trail occupies a thin strip of land between the...
The Virgil L. Gilman Trail travels from quiet forest and prairie lands to bustling neighborhoods in just 11 miles, linking a woodsy community college campus with the eastern Chicago suburb of...
The 9-mile Green Bay Trail runs parallel to Chicago's Metra commuter rail line north of the Chicago city limits. Stretching through North Shore towns such as Kenilworth, Winnetka, Highland Park and...
The Hononegah Recreation Path begins near the State Route 2 bridge over the Rock River in Rockton, a small town about 4 miles south of the Illinois–Wisconsin border. The paved trail follows Hononegah...
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The northern section of the Tinley Creek Trail is a series of color-coded connected loops and spurs that weave through several forest preserves in Cook County. The 24-mile trail system is paved,...
The DeKalb Nature Trail provides a pleasant, tree-lined route in northern DeKalb. Near its western trailhead, it crosses the Kishwaukee River and passes through the Nehring Forest Preserve. Further...
Ridgefield Trace currently consists of two short segments open for use. The western section runs from McHenry County College on US 14 in Crystal Lake to just west of N. Oak Street. Active railroad...
Although a relatively short trail, the Leland Path provides an important connection between the Hononegah Recreation Path and the Stone Bridge Trail. The pleasant, tree-dotted pathway travels through...
The Chain O' Lakes Bike Path is a paved trail that runs between E. Grand Avenue in Fox Lake and Grant Woods Forest Preserve to the east. The trail parallels the railroad track and Rollins Road/CR 31,...
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The Monon Trail in Lake County, Indiana—not to be confused with the trail of the same name in Indianapolis—links the two Chicago suburbs of Hammond and Munster. The paved trail occupies an abandoned...
The Hickory Creek Bikeway offers nearly 4 miles of paved pathway through a wooded preserve. On its western end, the trail begins at Hickory Creek Barrens Nature Preserve and Lincolnway Road; on the...
The DuPage River Trail spans nearly 30 miles across two counties: DuPage and Will. It's currently open in several disconnected segments mainly in parks and forest preserves beginning in Warrenville...
This path runs along the west side of the North Alpine Road in the Village of Machesney Park. It starts at the Schnuks parking lot and stretches about a mile north to the Lowe’s store parking area....
The Chicago Lakefront Trail is aptly named; it spans 19 miles along the shore of Lake Michigan, going right through downtown Chicago and passing many cultural and tourist attractions throughout the...
The Middlefork Savanna Forest Preserve is a natural gem hidden in an high-income neighborhood of Lake Forest, Illinois. Those 600 acres are home to perhaps the best-preserved example of the rare...
The Techny Trail links downtown Glenview, a charming village northwest of Chicago, with the Techny Basin, a scenic wetlands area adjacent to the West Fork of the Chicago River's North Branch....
The Pike River Pathway is a short trail on both sides of the reconstructed Pike River in the Village of Mount Pleasant. The path is convenient to several neighborhoods in the community. Birds, frogs...
The Robert McClory Bike Path runs the length of Lake County, knitting together a string of communities on the north shore of Chicago all the way to the Wisconsin border. In 1997, the trail was named...
Just 1 mile long, the Valley Line Trail—also known as the Sauganash Trail—extends between Bryn Mawr Avenue and Devon Avenue in the Chicago neighborhood of Sauganash. Two bridges allow for safe...
The Busse Woods Trail system is located within Ned Brown Forest Preserve, a 3,700-acre property in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago. There are 11.2 miles of paved trails for cyclists, equestrians...
The Charles Street Community Path offers a neighborhood route through southeastern Rockford, connecting residents to CherryVale Mall on its eastern end. On its western end, Alpine Park is just north...
This path runs along the west side of the North Alpine Road in the Village of Machesney Park. It starts at the Schnuks parking lot and stretches about a mile north to the Lowe’s store parking area....
The Northerly Island Trail offers access to a vast, natural oasis in one of the largest cities in America. Chicago’s Northerly Island—actually a 91-acre peninsula—was designed by Daniel H. Burnham,...
The Middlefork Savanna Forest Preserve is a natural gem hidden in an high-income neighborhood of Lake Forest, Illinois. Those 600 acres are home to perhaps the best-preserved example of the rare...
The Joliet Junction Trail is a paved path that travels north–south through the west side of Joliet. It occupies an abandoned Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway corridor that in its last years was known...
Baumann Park is adjacent to the Kishwaukee River in Cherry Valley, a community on the outskirts of Rockford in northern Illinois. A paved pathway runs through the park and loops around Baumann Park...
The Kenosha County Bike Trail is open in two sections separated by dense neighborhoods in the City of Kenosha. The northern segment runs northeast from 35th Street in the city to 1st Street at the...
The Tall Grass Greenway Trail is a trail that runs along the right of way for ComEd powerlines. The trail goes mainly through neighborhoods in south Naperville, and meets up with the south branch of...
The Illinois Prairie Path (IPP) was one of the nation’s first rail-trail conversions. It consists of five connected trail segments with three main branches that converge at Volunteer Park (West...
The Perryville Path runs nearly 7 miles, connecting the communities of Loves Park and Rockford, not far from the northern border of Illinois. A pleasant place to begin your journey is Rock Cut State...
The Willow Creek Path is a pleasant, tree-lined trail that follows its namesake creek for most of its journey through the communities of Machesney Park and Loves Park in the Rockford metropolitan...
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The 4.4-mile River Bend Trail is so named for the loop of Fox River along which it follows on its eastern end. It's here that you can connect to the scenic Fox River Trail to travel 43 miles along the...
The Hononegah Recreation Path begins near the State Route 2 bridge over the Rock River in Rockton, a small town about 4 miles south of the Illinois–Wisconsin border. The paved trail follows Hononegah...
The Kishwaukee River Recreation Path runs for 2.5 miles in Cherry Valley on the outskirts of Rockford in northern Illinois. The well-maintained, asphalt trail connects the Kishwaukee River Forest...
The Illinois and Michigan Canal State Trail follows the eponymous waterway alongside the Illinois River. The trail runs along the old canal towpath from LaSalle to the historical quarry town of...
This path runs along Mitchell Road, starting in Machesney Park. The trail heads north and then travels east where it terminates at Sunny Meadow Drive outside of Russ Park. This short path is just...
The Millennium Trail currently spans just over 30 miles in two disconnected segments, but there are plans to extend it to 35 miles and connect it to the Des Plaines River Trail. The trail goes through...
The Old Plank Road Trail travels nearly 22 miles between Chicago Heights and Joliet across a densely populated suburban landscape, where you’re never far from a café or espresso stand. Still, you...
The Commonwealth Edison Bikeway is a short paved trail that occupies an overhead electric utility corridor owned by Commonwealth Edison, the local utility company—hence the trail's name. While lacking...
The Pelishek-Tiffany Nature Trail runs for 6 miles along an abandoned railroad corridor, between the towns of Allens Grove and Clinton. The trail is open to snowmobiles, cyclists, horseback riders and...
The Virgil L. Gilman Trail travels from quiet forest and prairie lands to bustling neighborhoods in just 11 miles, linking a woodsy community college campus with the eastern Chicago suburb of...
The Prairie Point Trail is a scenic neighborhood route that connects twice to the longer Grove Road Trail. While never far from houses, the trail offers surprising scenery, including a stretch along a...
The Buffalo Creek Trail makes a loop around the scenic Buffalo Creek Forest Preserve in Long Grove. The crushed-gravel trail provides access to facilities throughout the park. Along the way, you’ll...
The Four Sisters Bike Path forms a horseshoe around the northern end of Rochelle, a small city south of Rockford in northern Illinois. The path connects several schools and parks, and the city has...
Although the Phyllis Harmon Path is short, it's an important connector in an east-west bike/ped route between Arlington Heights and Glencoe. Following Dundee Road, the paved trail goes from the Des...
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The Prairie Trail runs the length of McHenry County and is managed by the McHenry County Conservation District. The rail-trail spans just over 26 miles from the Wisconsin border and the farms and...
The Rote Road Multi-Use Path offers a paved route along the south side of Rote Road in eastern Rockford. It travels for nearly a mile, providing access to neighborhoods, businesses, and the Aldeen...
The DuPage River Trail spans nearly 30 miles across two counties: DuPage and Will. It's currently open in several disconnected segments mainly in parks and forest preserves beginning in Warrenville...
The Middlefork Savanna Forest Preserve is a natural gem hidden in an high-income neighborhood of Lake Forest, Illinois. Those 600 acres are home to perhaps the best-preserved example of the rare...
The Thorn Creek Trail offers a paved 17-mile route traversing woodlands abundant with wildlife through several communities on the southern outskirts of Chicago. The trail travels from Brownwell Woods...
The John Husar I&M Canal Trail is the northernmost trail developed on the Illinois & Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor. The Illinois & Michigan Canal provided the final link in the water route...
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The Salt Creek Trail travels nearly 27 miles from the Brookfield Zoo to Busse Woods Forest Preserve. Along the way it connects several beautiful county forest preserves and other woodland...
The Lake Geneva Bike Path runs through the scenic resort city, offering connections to many of the community’s amenities. The trail has five unique, color-coded segments. The Blue Route is the...
The Northerly Island Trail offers access to a vast, natural oasis in one of the largest cities in America. Chicago’s Northerly Island—actually a 91-acre peninsula—was designed by Daniel H. Burnham,...
The Charles Street Community Path offers a neighborhood route through southeastern Rockford, connecting residents to CherryVale Mall on its eastern end. On its western end, Alpine Park is just north...
I finally completed the trail in LaSalle last weekend, I had been completing the entire route in segments throughout the summer. Overall, I enjoyed the experience, I liked the historical placards and informative mile markers. Yes, I stopped and read every one of them! I thought it was really well done, and very interesting history of the canal and its construction and usage. Cool grande finale ending up in LaSalle where the packet boat and mule towpath was in full display with the tour.
I started in Lemont where the trail begins, through Lockport (the old canal headquarters) and got through Joliet. A must see is the old Joliet Iron Works, an interesting historical walking tour. The next segment I completed was from Joliet (Rockdale) to Channahon, with beautiful views of the Illinois River. Saw an abundance of varied wildlife as the canal here is wide with plenty of water still left in it. McKinley Woods Park is a nice diversion to take a break. Channahon to Morris was the next segment, again with nice views of barges on the river and the Dresden dam area. From Morris to Marseilles the trail begins to get more woodsy, and at some points the trail goes from crushed limestone to single track dirt. This is where the canal is hard to see, as it has dried up over the years, thus there is less wildlife to see. From Marseilles to Ottawa the trail is still woodsy, but becomes more industrial as you are riding next to train tracks and grain silos along the river for much of it. Ottawa to Utica becomes more scenic as you start to see the St Peters sandstone cliffs at certain points. Finally from Utica to LaSalle you can see much more of this, and the trail ends with a lock with all of its functioning parts, as would have existed back in the day.
I normally ride on much more challenging, tougher and more hilly terrain with my trail bike, so this was a change of pace for me. The trail is in decent shape, but you can tell that it has not been maintained for awhile. There are bridges out in several spots (easy to get around), and fallen trees that you need to lift your bike over. All in all, I would recommend it to the casual rider, seeking an interesting history of the canal from back in the nineteenth century. Happy riding!
The trail is mostly well paved. There's a section where somebody highlighted the pavement problems in yellow paint. Not sure if they mean to fix it or just warn. It is pretty flat and does cross several roads, but nothing too difficult (mid-day at least). Bridge at Palatine is nice. I did not notice buzzing from the power towers but at the ComEd station there was some. Did not seem like it was 4 miles long, but maybe that just means it was a pleasant ride. Probably not for the speedsters, but for senior citizens, very nice. Not obvious where it starts from the parking - go east toward Wolf Road, runs along is to start.
I live about 20 miles from Burlington, WI in Racine County where the Seven Waters Bike Trail starts at Riverside Park and heads north for 17 miles, which made for a nice day out and back on August 6, 2017 on the bike trail. However the trail is not signed as the “Seven Waters Bike Trail “as one mostly needs to follow “Bike Route” signs. Keep your eye out for those signs as the trail ties together many types of route characteristics and surfaces: isolated old RR grades, on road shoulders, along active roads, and thru parks-some sections are paved, some gravel and some asphalt road grindings in Waukesha County (sort of rough). But it’s all manageable and enjoyable. At the north end of the trail one can continue on a paved path alongside of County Highway OO to be very close to reach either the Muskego Recreational Trail to head west or the City of Franklin Hike & Bike Trail to head east. There are services along the way if you look for them.
Pros:
-Relatively flat, a few minor crossings, and thankfully a bridge over Palatine Rd.
-Nice untouched easement with the electric lines overhead, some grassland restoration
-Usually not crowded
-Connection to Lake Arlington at the northwest terminus
Neutral:
-Very straight
Cons:
-You will constantly hear the power lines overhead
-You sort of ride five feet off of some people's backyards
-Southern terminus ends abruptly in a bad spot
I really wish the southern end connected to something like the Des Plaines River Trail or continued along the easement to High Ridge Knolls (a E-W easement trail) so you had some type of loop. Depending on your way home you may have to face a really messy crossing at Rand. I usually head South across Euclid and cut through the large industrial park where there is a protected pedestrian crossing across Rand.
Pros:
-After Dundee, no unsafe crossings (to my knowledge)
-Varied scenery ranging from swamp, light and dense forest, restored prairies, and old farmland
-Pretty empty on most days (south of Milwaukee can see more traffic)
-Can sporadically see larger animals (deer, raccoons, skunks, turtles, snakes). Guaranteed to see some warblers, woodpeckers, hawks, and finches when in season
Neutral
-Some areas are pretty desolate. The solitude can be nice, but I can imagine it attracts criminals.
-The gravel/packed dirt is OK for the most part. Around Lincolnshire you start seeing more asphalt.
Cons
-South of Milwaukee trail is muddy and swamp-like, very narrow paths
-Underpasses can close as can parking lots (I once drove from Milwaukee Ave. to Beck Lake without finding an open lot)
-Can be a bit confusing especially south of Milwaukee
To sum up, start north at Milwaukee. There's a big lot but you have to cross unprotected and bike beyond a hotel before the trail picks up again. After this there is only one other crossing at Dundee. Some people start across Dundee so they don't have to cross at all.
I was also surprised by the abundance of old ruins sometimes right along the trail. There's an old POW Camp, tons of old farm remains, and scattered agricultural machinery,
My husband and I wanted to take a different trail this weekend. Overall, the trail was in great shape just a couple of soft spots. It was a very hot day so we had the trail basically to ourselves. We had trouble finding the trail head in Joliet but really enjoyed a picnic lunch at the Kankakee river park.
I don't know how anyone could rate this anything but 5 stars. There are sections of this trail (Channahon to Ottawa) that are absolutely breathtaking - especially on a warm fall day when the leaves are turning color. There are long sections of the trail where you are riding between two bodies of water and it is absolutely spectacular. Access the train in Channahon and ride northeast toward Ottawa. You will not regret it!
I frequently take the VL Gilman from the access off Terry St. on the west side of Aurora and go west to Bliss Road and exit to ride the country roads west of Route 47. The Gilman Trail is beautiful and many sections are recently paved (within West Aurora) sections.
I see a lot of five star reviews and I am guessing those come from people at the north end of this long trail. South of where it crosses Milwaukee Avenue, there are some pretty poor areas. It floods out, there are unsafe road crossings. In one place it comes down to a worn path barely a tire's width. South of Touhy Avenue the surface is uneven with some rocks and old broken asphalt. I ride this trail often because it is the one closest to me, but for the stretch I know, I cannot give this a high rating. The North Branch Trail is much better, a few miles east.
We rode the section from Pottawatomie Park in St. Charles to Aurora on Saturday September 16th in the afternoon. Once we found the trail from the parking lot, it was a lovely ride and not a lot of hills. It passes through a few congested areas near parks and through downtown St. Charles but largely it was not overpopulated. There are a few places that it wasn't terribly clear which way to go, there's a main trail with trails that go off it and at one point there are two trails, one on each side of the river. Once we got to Aurora there was a bit of street riding, well marked, and then there was nothing although I knew we couldn't be at the end based on the map. The trail is all asphalt and in pretty good condition. The scenery is beautiful and goes through some nice towns.
Sunday Sept. 17th we rode the part from Norris Woods in St. Charles to the 5 or 6 mile mark which is north of Elgin. There were lots of places that were not marked well at all, there were a lot of confused riders including us. There's currently one section that is closed, we figured it out going north, going south we missed the turnoff but were able to figure out how to get back on the street. The scenery was not as nice as the south section. There are more hills on this route including one right at Norris Woods, one in Elgin that I had to get off and walk and one mid way that was very challenging. Mostly asphalt, some street riding, a couple small crushed limestone sections.
I started at Custer Park, where there is a small lot for parking. I rode the entire trail on 12SEP17 starting at 7:30 am. I didn't see anyone the first ten miles, but later in the day, I came across fellow bikers as well as runners and hikers. The trail is well kept and mostly shaded. Only about 2 miles of it is paved, the rest is crushed limestone. Although I was riding my mountain bike, it has a thin smooth tread 'commuter' tire on the front. I had zero problems with the trail surface. In fact, I'm fairly certain I could use my road bike on the trail, but I'm not going to risk it. There are benches at irregular intervals for breaks, restrooms, and a couple water fountains. Overall it was a great ride and I'm looking forward to doing it again.
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