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Print Friendly MapAs with many of the greenways in the Ozark trail system, the Wilson’s Creek Branch trail follows the route of an eponymous waterway. The trail begins at the Rutledge-Wilson Farm Park down to Republic Road. There are plans to connect the trail to the other greenways to build a continuous network of off-road facilities, beginning with South Creek Greenway at Tal’s Trailhead.
Park at the northern terminus, Rutledge-Wilson Farm Park (3825 S. Farm Road 146) or near the southern endpoint at Tal's Trailhead (3351 S. Kauffman Road). From there you can connect to South Creek Greenway for a longer excursion.
Parked at Taj's trailhead. Started up the hill going north. At the top of the hill there is a gate with a large padlock on it. I could go no further unless I were to lift my bicycle over the gate.
We parked at Tal's Trailhead and went North. There were some challenging hills as the path wandered through open pasture and forest. We followed the map from TrailLink and missed the path twice which kind of screwed up our mileage goal! We stopped at Rutledge Wilson's Farm Park...what a treat! Don't pass this stop up. A working farm with opportunity to interact with the goats, mini-ponies and sheep. We started back to ride the South Creek Greenway and realized the beginning of that trail was at the top of a large hill and a bit of the path is on a very busy road. We watched a cyclist navigate the traffic and decided to call it quits! Always enjoy riding new trails and this experience would have been better with trail markings.
If you park at Taj's trailhead and go south, there are a couple of hills to negotiate where the trail couldn't follow the floodplain of Wilson's Creek. And the Springfield treatment center is just across the creek, so there are some odors. Going north from Taj's trailhead the trail crosses some cowfields that sometimes contain cattle, so there are gates to open and close in a few places and cow patties to decorate the trail. But a nice trail that is not heavily traveled and asphalt paved, a good place for a rural walk or ride close to Springfield's west side.
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