Find the top rated hiking trails in Elizabethtown, whether you're looking for an easy short hiking trail or a long hiking trail, you'll find what you're looking for. Click on a hiking trail below to find trail descriptions, trail maps, photos, and reviews.
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On a chilly morning in late October with a temperature hovering at forty degrees, I ventured out onto the Louisville Loop's Parklands of Floyds Fork portion of trails. The Parklands is made up of five sections in a rural setting, and I rode four of them out and back.
BECKLEY CREEK PARK
First of all, this section is surprisingly hilly at the start and toward the end. Even the bridges over the creek were steep! Thank goodness for my Swytch pedal assist! It's especially picturesque with beautiful creek and woodlands views. The calls of birds will accompany you throughout this section.
(Unfortunately, the connecting trail to Pope Lick Park was closed as of October 23 due to construction, so back up the trail, pack up the bike, and drive to the next trailhead.)
POPE LICK PARK & THE STRAND
If you're averse to hills, then these are the sections for you. If you're also into sensational creek views and crossing over bridges, you'll be in heaven.. These two sections also contain beautiful scenery of wooded hills, farmland with field of corn, and a few charming country homes. Keep your eyes peeled for turtles. I saw about a dozen of them sunning themselves on a log extending into the creek. Rust colored fuzzy caterpillars with a black collar and black rear tip were also all over the trail. By far, these portions of the trail were the busiest with bicyclists and walkers.
TURKEY RUN PARK
Again, if you're not into hills, this is not a good section for you. With my pedal assist it was not an issue, and it was especially fun going through the woods and seeing the multitude of squirrels with nuts in their mouths scampering across the path and up trees. Of course the silo at the top of the hill is one of the stars of this section and is most definitely worth the climb to the top. From there you can see the trail head down through Turkey Park to the north, and the trail also heading down to the south and Broad Run Park (which I didn't have time to do).
CONCLUSION
All in all, I did 31 miles in this superlative park. The trail is superb: wide, smooth, and curvy which adds to the fun and interest! The park has real restrooms that are clean and have sinks. No porta-potties for The Parklands! This park system is obviously much beloved by the community. There were many happy, friendly folks utilizing it on a weekday. It's evident that a great deal of thought and planning went into this treasure! It's a model of what a park should be. The rest of the country should come and study it. It is most certainly a destination bike ride. I came all the way from California to ride this, and I have no regrets! What a gem of a park and trail system!
(This was the 49th state I've ridden my bike in. Thanks for making it a great one, Louisville! On to Hawaii!)
The downtown section west from the Big 4 Bridge was awful. Poorly maintained and a lot of sketchy areas. Do yourself a favor and ride across the Big 4 Bridge into Indiana and ride the trail west from there. Nice trail and some nice views of the river.
We only did the short section due to the heat, but it was actually really pleasant underneath the green shaded path! We did run into two downed trees that required going around as they were pretty big. (There was a big storm two nights ago and lots of cleanup going on in the area.). Took a few detours to the campground and the green river ferry crossing. We also ended up on a road that was closed off to cars but a national park bus came down and dropped off some serious cavers. We watch them gear up and go down into the bowels of the earth. Not for the faint of heart! I believe it was called the wild cave tour. Total of 9.6 miles over 2 1/2 hours for a wonderful morning ride! Loved it all.
If you enjoy getting of the roads and paved trails, and ride trails through the woods, but don't like narrow, technical, dangerously unkempt trails, this is the trail for you! Nice wide, easy going in most sections, with a couple of steeper sections (which can be ridden easily on an e-bike...otherwise walked, as they recommend). Surface is hard-packed dirt, but with a layer of pretty course gravel (trap rock, etc.), so definitely best for fat tire bikes. As for the starting point, no need to start in town (not that interesting anyway, unless you need to go to a store, or something like that). As others have said, best option is to start on the southern end, if you can get one of those couple of gravel parking spaces on Zion Cemetery Road, right off of the Mammoth Cave Parkway...otherwise, you can go up the Parkway just a little ways to the paved lot near the big Mammoth Cave Park sign, where there are 4-5 spaces (but you'll miss a couple of cool sections of the trail that start on the cemetery road). Enjoy!
Lousy, traprock surface, twisty, steep hill that require walking bikes, unmarked dead end fork. Rode on hybrid with 28 mm tires. Took road back. Never again.
We continued our ride at the Pope Lick trailhead (right after the Taylorsville closure) and rode south 10 miles to the Brown-Forman Silo center. The first 7 miles were relatively flat and the last 3 very hilly. Most of the trail sections we rode were in the sun which may make this a little warm in the summer. However, it was very evident that Louisville spared no expense on this section of the trail.
We road the Parklands of Floyd’s Fork trail which is the section east of downtown Louisville. It was an amazing ride with diverse scenery. We’ve ridden quite a few trails and this ranks right up there with any of the hall of fame trails we ridden. We started at the most north trailhead in Beckley Park. We road 5 miles south to the Taylorsville road closure. It was very hilly with steep grade warnings and we felt very lucky to be on hybrid bikes!
Easy access from either end of the trail. Great trail that winds through a part of town and along a train track, then along the River. Some mud and debris along the low portion of the trail, but most had be removed allowing easy biking or walking rail road tracks and parks. Trail was well marked and mainly concrete that was mainly cleared after some flooding. Easy to bike or walk with some inclines. Nice trail!
This is a beautiful trail with a gorgeous creek....worth the drive from Louisville
Good condition, well lighted, good for walking and cycling. Nice amenities, well marked, security cameras in place, connects to other nearby trail systems.
I agree with the previous review about starting at the south end on Zion Cemetery Rd; however, be aware that there is only room for about 1 or 2 cars there (see photo). You can park just north of there on Mammoth Cave Pkwy, but only have about 5 spots there (see photo).
Nice wooded ride. Rode it on our hybrids with no problems. Several signs about the history of the railroad and the area. 2 or 3 steep hills….I got off and pushed. Bone shaking ride if you go down them fast. Trail definitely diverged from the old railroad grade 😀
Our original plan was to bike up the Visitor Center and take a cave tour, but read about boot wash when exiting the cave and didn’t want to bike in boots. Turns out the wash barely got the soles wet. Could have done the tour in sneakers. Saw folks doing it in flip-flops.
Grab your coat, hop on your bike, ride to a great cave tour. A unique Kentucky experience. Enjoy….bikin-mike…Aug 2022
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