Explore the best rated trails in Fort Wayne, IN. Whether you're looking for an easy walking trail or a bike trail like the Central City Trail and Pumpkinvine Nature Trail. With more than 32 trails covering 4057 miles you're bound to find a perfect trail for you. Click on any trail below to find trail descriptions, trail maps, photos, and reviews.
In the last week of October 2022, while heading to N. VA. to attend a hobby
show, I decided to bring along the bike to sample some bike trails along the way.
First stop was Richmond IN, southern terminus of the Cardinal Greenway,
another Rail-Trail Hall of Fame trail [My 4th]. It reminded Me of the Tanglefoot
Trail a bit, due to the rural region, only instead of cotton & soybeans, the crop
is corn. Quite a bit of harvesting going on. Saw lots of Fall foliage as well; a
bonus of riding there during this time of year. [Peak "Leaf Peeping" season].
Oct 24 I rode the stretch from Richmond to Losantville & back [50 miles].
Oct 25 I rode from Losantville to Muncie & back [36 miles]. I ran into some
construction near the Depot Trailhead in Muncie, so cut the ride short there,
as rain also threatened. (A detour was possible, but unsigned; too bad.)
Overall I really enjoyed this trail; very light grades made for an easy peddle.
The route parallels US 35 so trailhead access is easy, with plenty of rest stops,
though only a few have water available, so bring a good supply to start. Will return
to do the northern portion next year.
There's about 0.7 of a mile south of town that is great. The rest of the "trails" are just city surface streets declared to be "trails" with no signage to point you in the right direction. Nothing compared to the trail systems available in Goshen up the road.
We live just 20 miles from this path. And did it for the first time yesterday. We did New Breman to St Marys. Started out beautiful but a mile out of town we lost the path. Only to find out it is a grass path between the canal and a corn field. Would be beautiful quiet walking path. But for sure not for bikes. We cut around and did some back roads and tried again further north. But the whole way from NB to SM is grass. May need to check out further south.
The trail passes through what the locals call Winona Village which is a small peninsula with a shop lined canal and many picturesque houses. Definitely worth exploring. There's a side trail that takes you up to Grace College. It's a mile long and goes through secluded woods with trail side sculptures. That's a mile long so adds 2 miles. You can circle the lake (i suggest going clock wise so you are always making right turns and don't have to cross traffic). The college detour and circling the lake gives you a 10 mile loop. Detour into downtown for another 2 miles. There are many nice houses along main and center streets. The courthouse and surrounding square is very picturesque.
The best part of this trail is the bridge over the elkhart river. The rest was just a path along plymouth avenue. Handy for us as it lead to our b&b but not a destination. Not unpleasant but very suburban compared to the leafy Shanklin-Mullet and Millrace trails.
This trail starts in Goshen College and heads south along what I assume is an old rail trail. It's surprisingly secluded, quiet and peaceful. We hit the trail from the south end of the Millrace Trail where it terminates in the Shoups-Parsons Woods Park by taking Westwood Road east to the campus where there's a small curvy access trail. You can see this on the map just south of westwood on main st. There's a nice extension to the east worth a detour. Go north to explore the campus. Then the best part is heading south where the trail is secluded. We headed west from the southern end of the trail and explored Violett Cemetery as we headed back north.
The trail goes north from the pumpkinvine trail just south of middlebury. The trail briefly parallels state road 20 before branching off around a horse field and then into a golf course like park with a picturesque covered bridge. It finishes in the hugely popular Das Dutchman Essenhaus with it's many shops and restaurants. I recommend the cookies in the bakery. The north end of the trail connects with the Wayne Avenue trail which will take you into the center of Middlebury and the pumpkin vine trail.
The trail passes through what the locals call Winona Village which is a small peninsula with a shop lined canal and many picturesque houses. Definitely worth exploring. There's a side trail that takes you up to Goshen College. It's a mile long and goes through secluded woods with trail side sculptures. That's a mile long so adds 2 miles. You can circle the lake (i suggest going clock wise so you are always making right turns and don't have to cross traffic). The college detour and circling the lake gives you a 10 mile loop. Detour into downtown for another 2 miles. There are many nice houses along main and center streets. The courthouse and surrounding square is very picturesque.
This is not a trail but a random series of plain narrow sidewalks and roads. There are 3 nice bits: on the east side of syracuse lake there's a narrow paved section (not wide enough to pass) , a short flowery stretch north of lake Wawasee near the gulf course and the best bit a boardwalk called the Conklin Bay Trail on the sw side of Lake Wawasee. Unfortunately these bits are less then 10% of the trail.
I don't know what the criteria is for putting trails on TrailLink. There are no markers showing where the trail is. There is nothing natural telling you where to go. There is nothing traily about it. No clue why this is on trail link.
That being said, we ended up doing a figure eight around lake syracuse and lake wawasee which we really enjoyed. That ended up being about 21 miles. State Road 13 is really busy with fast traffic so we avoided that as much as possible. There's a full service bathroom at Lakeview Park across from the Syracuse Community Center.
We began at the Hill St. Trailhead and rode into Lagro, then back to the west end of Wabash. There were rest rooms at three areas of Wabash (not Hill St.) and in Lagro. It was a good mixture of terrains and scenery, with the Wabash town being prettiest. The next time we will not go up the hill and into Lagro: we had to push our bikes up the hill, and we didn't like the .6 mile gap on shared road into Lagro.
We parked at East Winney park which allowed us to return to our car between doing branches of the trail. There are no bathrooms there, but there are plenty full service restrooms along the trail. We did the entire trail and adding in the side parks you can optionally do and a brief detour for lunch we ended up with 75 miles. I think if you stuck to the trails themselves you'd be looking at around 50-55 miles. Our favorite path was the one going east to New Haven as that path is the most secluded and follows the river which is visible for most of the way. What is particularly nice is that these are not straight boring rail trails through corn fields. There is a lot of variety and distractions along the way. There are a few short bits in town that are a bit trafficy but they're quickly forgotton as most of the ride is along the river and through parks.
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