Find the top rated running trails in Merrill, whether you're looking for an easy short running trail or a long running trail, you'll find what you're looking for. Click on a running trail below to find trail descriptions, trail maps, photos, and reviews.
A mix of urban & nature.
The nature segments are excellent, beautiful and lush but the urban parts can be difficult to stay, as markers are few.
A nice trail whose view is unfortunately dominated by I-75 and power lines.
Kinda unimpressive and some very rough pavement.
With nothing to see and noise from a constant, I just wouldn't bother.
While my daughter was riding her horse across a bridge on 3/21/25 (from Millington to otter lake) the horse's leg went thru one of the boards on the bridge. It appeared that the boards had recently been replaced as there were pieces of cut boards in the creek bed below. Just wanted to let someone know before someone else falls thru and they or their horse gets injured. I'm sorry I don't know which bridge specifically, but like I said it was located between Millington and otter lake. Wasn't sure how else to contact anyone to report it (feel free to delete after whomever needa to know is told)
It's a nice easy ride and a great route for students commuting to and from campus. However, it's kind of squeezed between apartment complexes and residential areas in spots, which kind of cuts into the scenery a bit.
Nice, straight trail. Plenty of places for parking and amenities in each town. I wish it were paved all the way through, but in general the crushed limestone isn't a huge obstacle between towns. Highly recommend!
The sheer length of the trail is what makes it really worthwhile in my opinion. It covers South Lansing, Downtown, Hawk Island Park, Potter Park Zoo, and MSU's campus, which is a nice sampling of Greater Lansing. It's also nicely forested and quite scenic, especially in the fall. With that being said, the downtown stretch and the bit between Aurelius and Kalamazoo are both in need of repair; everything else is pretty much perfect, though!
This is a nice trail, with offshoot branches that help to differentiate it from other trails.
Pavement is mostly sooth except in the last section, what I guess are plant roots cracking upwards the pavement so badly that it actually launched my bum off the seat an inch or two.
Applewood seems to be more of a connector type of trail, as opposed to a full trail by its self.
Parts of the trail seem prone to flooding when there's heavy rain, so be on the lookout for that.
There's a few sports fields and swing sets for kids but other than that, there isn't anything to see or do here.
Our group of 9 riders rode this trail in addition to the Saginaw Valley Rail Trail. We had a total of 25.7 miles starting in St Charles, MI to the end of the SVRT and then adding on an out and back on the Thomas Twp Trail, which connect easily to the SVRT. The Thomas Twp Trail is a beautiful, meandering trail through a tree farm, past a beautiful school and into neighborhoods in Thomas Township. The trail is in excellent condition and well signed and outstanding trail markers. Kudos to the folks in Thomas Twp who made this happen - we will be back!
TrailLink is a free service provided by Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (a non-profit) and we need your support!
Scan the QR code to get TrailLink on your phone
Map Search
_138800_st.jpg)
_181503_st.jpg)
_0_st.jpg)
