Best and Worst of Trails in Your Area

[Adam]

What's your favorite and least-favorite things about the trails in your area? Kind of give people a taste of where you run with the highs and the lows.

Recently moved from North Dakota -
Best - Lots of open dirt roads/trails without any traffic or population
Worst - Flat and mosquitoes the size of birds

[Matthew]

East Texas Davey Crockett Nat. Forest at Lake Ratcliff there is camping fishing and 3 trails for hiking, biking, and running, the longest one is about 20 miles out.

Best - no trafic, queit, lots of animal, soft dirt trails, and you can camp and wake up early for a run and fish or swim after you are done.

Worst - ticks, large mosquitoes, chiggers if you go out in tall grass, and on certain holidays the camp grounds get crowded.




Clarksville TN - Rotary park

Best- hills and changing terrain, wooded area, option to camp, lots of different trails and loops to run, if you want you can bike them but you better be good at moutain biking first, trails are in town so no long drive.

Worst- some times larg rocks to bruise feet are on the trails, look out for horse poop ( some bring their horses and they startle when you run up on them on a bend " NOT GOOD " ) Multiple laps on a certain trail might be called for in order to get a large mount of miles with out straining to much on large inclines.




Clarksville TN - Dunbar Cave A small running and walking trail is here around the lake and cave. the short loop is 1 mile and long is 2 miles. You can feed the ducks and fish or tour the cave if you want as well.

Best - queit, shaded, changing terrain and inclines, soft dirt pathes, the trail is more of a single track, only walkers and runners are allowed, Trail is inside the city so no long drives

Worst - Look out for roots, trails are not long, compete for parking spots some times.


KY and TN - Land Between the Lakes or LBL

Best- Hills, shaded, single track and open trails, 20 + miles to be run on multiple trails or roads. You can bike as well. There are lots of other things you can do after the run is over. JUST GOOGLE IT.

Worst - long drive, no gas or anything on the island but park and ranger stations, summer time misquitoes.

[Pablo]

I'm out west in Northern Colorado where there are tons of good trails.

Best part: pretty much everything has lots of rocks, roots and mega hills. Got Rocky Mountain National Park close by along with plenty of 14er's.

Worst part: lots of rattlesnakes floating around them parts, apparently mountain lions, and black bears (haven't seen the latter two though...yet).

[Lance]

Central South Michigan. Fort Custer Recreation Park. It covers a little over 3000 acres and has lots of trails.
Best- A variety of trail types to choose from. Lots of cool scenery, beaches, camping, wildlife and so on. Trails are maintained by volunteers and they do a great job. The DNR is on site so help is never too far away if you get into real trouble. You can also bike there as well as ride horses if you are so inclined.
Worst- Off limit areas that can get you into real trouble if you cross into them. Nasty summer time insects that try to drain your life away one bite at a time. Horse poop. Hunters can be an issue too. I like to run there in the winter but during firearm deer season I avoid the place for my own safety. I have tried to include a map and a couple pictures.

[Barb]

Best - you can quickly be away from people and run for ever
Worst - a lot of the local trails are complicated with routes and rocks
Best - for those who love the uphill it's pretty endless on the North Shore mountains of Vancouver
Worst - it rains a lot here and trails can be pretty slippery

[Tom Dobosz]

Best - Any trail anywhere in southwest Arizona from Nov.1 until April 1
Worst - All trails below 8500' elevation from April 2 until Oct 6 The desert heat for me is unbearable. The cooler the better