Find the top rated cross country skiing trails in Lakeland Highlands, 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.
We started at the south at the Polk City trailhead and traveled north. The trail quickly goes into rural and then mostly wild surroundings on both sides of the trail. Looking at the maps, you can see the wildlife management area, but the same type of flora is found earlier in along the trail. A few houses, and views over farming on the east side of the trail.
Make sure to go far enough to get to 'The Bridges' which are near Withla on Google Maps. We saw alligators, snakes and hawks, and a lot of other birds and lizards.
At several points along the way the trail split--but no signs. They have some nice kiosks but with no maps just a bunch of stuff about plants, etc. Nice but I need to have better directions--not just guessing or following other people. The "hills"aren't much but still a little variety from most of FLs flat trails, even with crampy legs the "hills" weren't much challenge.
The new western segment from Hiawatha Park about 3 miles out was very nice; hope they extend it beyond the little bike cul de sac. Overall a nice trail, except for lots of road crossings and lack of signage.
The past two Novembers my wife and I have joined our best friends at their condo in Dunedin, what an enchanting town, and ridden this trail out of Dunedin both North and South. The trail does have numerous road crossings but bikers are given special consideration and expected by drivers. The trail offers a variety of settings and places to sight see, eat, and just relax. We recommend the Boxcar in Dunedin for a snack, Home Plate On The Trail in Dunedin for a meal, or if you travel to Tarpon Springs the trail runs right by Toulah's restaurant so stop, park your bike and enjoy. We highly recommend this trail.
We have done the Auburndale Trail many times. The trail itself is fine and well maintained, however, the bathrooms are a disgrace! Many times in the past it would be out of toilet paper or slightly dirty. We overlooked these shortcomings, thinking we were just catching it on an off day. Today it was so horrible I felt I had to say something. I also have photos to prove my point but I haven't figured out where to post them yet. The women's toilet was so backed up it was disgusting to even look at. There was toilet paper and trash all over the floor. The men's bathroom didn't have the same extreme problem, but was totally out of toilet paper. A better job needs to be done.
This loop trail is a great ride and allows for viewing natural surroundings. My wife and I started at the park headquarters where we paid our $2 parking fee and used the restrooms. The loop is plenty wide enough to accommodate slower, casual riders such as our selves while allowing more serious riders (and skaters) to pass. We took the 2 mile extension to the other park entrance where more facilities and refreshment is available. The main path was under water, but a foot bridge has been constructed to get over it.
If one were to ride this repeatedly, it might get a little boring I suspect. But for a couple of northerners escaping the cold, it was a little taste of heaven.
Just up the road from the park is the development of Cross Creek with lots of good places to eat.
Be careful riding this. It is all residential sidewalk. Lots of little obstacles.
This is a HORRIBLE trail. In fact, ‘Trail’ is a misnomer. About a third of this ‘trail’ is okay. For the rest of it, you are either paralleling an extremely busy state highway or traversing what is best described as an endless sea of driveway crossings. And all those driveway crossings mean that all you see are houses IN FRONT OF THE LAKE!!! If you want to actually bike around a lake, while actually seeing that lake, head north to Lake Wales. You can do the short trail that is shown here on trailLink, as well as the path that goes about half way around the lake, which is not shown here. I can't overstate how much I hated this 'trail'.
Be aware that some signage on the Weam Wilson trail refers to this trail as the ' Duke ' energy trail.
Enjoyed the trail. The ' you are here ' signage is much appreciated. However, some of them and the steet sign at the Philies camp indicate 'Progressive ' energy trail versus 'Duke ' energy trail. Which is correct I don't know, just some FYI that they're the same.
Kissimmee is doing a great job with this Trail!. I enjoyed the connection ride from Shingle Creek to Kissimmee Loop Trail That BRIDGE OVER John Young Parkway is a MUST, very pretty and a fun ride. Plenty of places for pictures, and selfies. Loved the ride alongside the creek. I will submit pics as soon as I download them. Can’t wait to see more connections added to this project. Tip: get there during the earlier part of the day. The roadway to get there is busy with traffic.
Over the years, I have run over 10,000 miles on this trail so I am pretty familiar with it. I am a marathon runner and do almost all of my training here. Every day brings something different in the way of wildlife to see, depending on time of the year, time of the day, weather and luck. You will very often see alligators, turtles, vultures, peacocks, and numerous other types of birds. I have also seen deer, armadillos, raccoons, snakes, hawks, osprey, bald eagles, fox and even a bobcat once. Occasionally you'll even hear a lion roar, as part of the trail runs parallel to the border of Big Cat Rescue. This trail is a treasure for residents and visitors alike. Unfortunately, in recent years there has been a push to develop more and more of the land surrounding the trail. But with the well-placed water stops and restrooms, it remains a great place for a run, a bike ride, or just a quiet walk through some of the beautiful terrain of Florida.
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