Find the top rated hike trails in Washington, whether you're looking for an easy short hike trail or a long hike trail, you'll find what you're looking for. Click on a hike trail below to find trail descriptions, trail maps, photos, and reviews.
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If you park at the Sandy Creek Nature center, you can ride this trail and then join the Firefly Trail, which has the new bridge in place, and ride all the way to Winterville. The Firefly portion of the trail passes a convenience/gas store if you need water/food/bathroom. At that juncture you can also turn right, cross Lexington Road and continue on a trail into UGA, or towards East Athens on the other fork. This you can get a good 2-3 hr ride using all spurs.
Could use some police presence. Hardly anyone using the trail. Perhaps due to the number of homeless. Needs advocates to support the trail, add decent connections. We rode canal path to Riverwalk. The city sidewalks between were terribly rough.
Parked by McCormick country club end. Road about .4 miles on the trail, until came to very large trees down from Hurricane Helene. Possibly could have lifted bikes through but wasn’t sure how many more were down. Many had been cut so I’m sure they will eventually be cut. Turned back and drove to SC7 parking. About 3 spaces there, road about 2 miles, roots, leaves, and pine straw covered, definitely need a mountain bike, beautiful trip in the woods. There is a small detour onto moss rd for about .5 miles, which is a country road not busy. Didn’t go all the way to Willington. Very nice day!
I walk and bike this trail often. Scenic and some challenging hills. Caution required after heavy rain as the trail floods in some areas near the creek.
Enjoyed a great ride on the trail with friends. We parked at Sandy Creek Nature Center and road all the way till it ended at Carriage Lane. It’s completely paved, it was our 1st trip so we did get a little confused but had no problems navigating back to where we started. We ended up with 14+ miles round trip which made for a great ride. Lots of other cyclists, walkers, and runners. But not crowded on the day we went during the week. Highly recommend
Wanted to provide a more recent review. Rode most of the trail yesterday with my wife. It is well marked, well maintained and beautiful ride. The path is hard pack - not concrete or black top so it is not super smooth. There are several things to see and placards to read that explain the features of the old railroad. Also a cemetery from the 1700s and a fun tressel towards the end. The only negatives were that my wife thought there were too many roots. There are roots and I rode a mountain bike so I didn’t really notice them as ‘bad”. Also there is about a 2.5 mile section you have to ride on the road in the middle. It is a country road and traffic was lite and the cars were respectful of us and rode slowly around us. There were benches and picnic tables along the route if you wanted to stop and just sit for a while. We only saw 2 other people walking their dogs. It was a fun trail for novice riders not looking for single track. Enjoy -
The trail now connects downtown Athens to Winterville road. It's a fun couple miles to bike or hike on smooth pavement the whole way. There are water fountains and benches as well. Lots of fun to connect the Firefly to the North Oconee Greenway and bike about 10 miles around Athens!
Gave it 4 stars for being fairly well maintained and off the road in areas. This is a 4-6’ wide asphalt path combined with sidewalks on a fairly busy road. Yes it is safer than riding / running on side of road, but you still have to clear every intersection / business parking lots 3-4 ways before crossing….and there are a lot. If you want a scenic trail, this is not it. If you want a safe pathway to Savannah River Locks from Evans, this is a good alternative.
Parts of it were very pretty, and overall pretty well maintained (but with a fair amount of roots in some areas). But about 1/3 of the 9 miles were on roads with no shoulder. Not busy roads, but not what we expected of a “rail trail”. Also a lot of spiderwebs on the trail.
Great trail. Listed as closed, figured that we would just be out the drive if it was closed. Could never figure out why it is listed that way. It is beautiful and well maintained.
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