Find the top rated cross country skiing trails in Elkhart, whether you're looking for an easy short cross country skiing trail or a long cross country skiing trail, you'll find what you're looking for. Click on a cross country skiing trail below to find trail descriptions, trail maps, photos, and reviews.
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Traveled from Pennsylvania to ride this trail since we found out about it on TrailLink. We stayed at a local hotel. Trail is paved the entire length from Goshen to Shipshewana. A local told me they just finished paving the last crushed stone section. Trail goes through a few small towns which offers services. We ate lunch in Middlebury. Shipshewana offers many great shops and restaurants. This is in an Amish community. Small hill at mile 2.5. Most of the scenery is flat and open through farms but there are a few wooded sections of the trail as well. Worth driving 5 hours to get to and making it a getaway. Trail was busy for a Saturday but not crowded. Friendly folks along the way. We were lucky to have such great weather too!
It has a nice round trip, with mostly smooth pavement except by Roseland park, so maybe skip that section.
Nice and open to nature with a brief urban stint with not too many road crossings.
I would recommend this trail to anyone looking.
It's mostly an urban trail, with not too much nature.
Geese were allover the place and so was their poop.
Good round trip though.
Bird poop is common throughout this trail, especially by American Park, to the point you might want to only walk that segment instead of riding a bike.
Pavement is mostly smooth, though American Park turns into loose stone for a stretch, and overall scenery is good for the trail.
A good that's slightly marred by a brief urban stint, you'll thankfully spend most of your time in a nature setting with this route.
Mostly flat, you'll get both sun & shade with this trail, though sights are few.
You can also use this trail to link up with multiple other trails in Portage, including Millennium Trail, Lovers Lane Bikeway, Romence Road Bikeway, Shaver Road Bikeway, and Northwest Portage Bikeway.
This one should be avoided, as with frequent road crossings and nothing to see, you are going to spend almost all of your time in a urban, neighborhood setting.
The parts of the trail not on Ravine Rd seem great. Sure, the downtown route is a bit tricky but they have center lines to mark the bike path now along arcadia creek and the festival site, etc. My real complaint is they were not able to find a solution for nearly a couple of miles along Ravine Rd, other than a small segment on the property of Kalamazoo Public School Transportation, where someone on inline skates or a small bike could enjoy a small break from a narrow bike lane. Is that what they hoped they would be able to do all along that side, but only the Kalamazoo owned public transportation would agree to it, and the rest, you have to use a fairly narrow bike lane. The exception is that the last quarter mile or so, on the south side of Ravine before Douglas Ave, there is a really nice bike lane, with extra shoulder on the right of it. Why couldn't that have been extended further up? I have even used that against traffic when coming back before crossing over to the right side of the rd, because it is such a wider area than the bike lane on the north side of Ravine at that point. After all this time, it would have been nice if they found some options to improve that segment. The rest of it, I really like though!
This is such a lovely trail with beautiful views of farms, but also places to stop for snacks if you're into a more leisurely rides. You can make it longer by adding miles on the Greenway. Something for everyone!
I don't know why it's called the River Valley trail since most of it goes right next to the highway, with only occasional views of a river and no valley to be seen. We rode 20 miles starting in Galesburg. The first couple of miles were scenic, through a wooded area but the next 10 miles were along the highway - BORING AND UGLY. When we got to Kalamazoo, we found several detours because of unsafe bridges. That forced us to cross busy highways. While the trail surface was mostly good, the location of the trail was terrible.
What a lovely ride through the countryside! We rode in late April, so saw plenty of spring flowers and budding trees through the woods. We also enjoyed seeing some lambs and foals in the livestock pastures that we passed. The entire trail is paved, and in very good condition most of the way. We rode from Abshire Park in Goshen to Shipshewana and back, and stopped in Middlebury on the way out for lunch, and Mooey's for ice cream on the return trip. Just be aware that a lot of places are closed on Sundays, so try to ride on Saturday or a weekday. I would love to do this trail again in the fall, to see the change in scenery.
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