Our Favorite Trail

The St. Louis River Trail

On a beautiful, warm Minnesota afternoon, the family and I put the bikes in the truck and headed west to our favorite trail.  It is a relatively new and fairly unknown paved facility that is very flat and, for most of it, in a scenic forest.  It is called the St. Louis River Trail and it is managed by Carlton County.  The north end is the "Scanlon Park and Ride" - a parking lot just south of Interstate 35 in Scanlon, near Cloquet.  We parked the truck there and this time we hooked the trail a bike on my bike instead of my wife Cameron's.  It was a little more of a pain to hook up because I don't have a kickstand.  Once it was ready, Bergen (6) hopped on and said, as she always does when we go somewhere, "Let's roll!"  So we did.

The trail wound south away from the parking lot and soon crossed a gravel access road before going into a dark corridor of pine trees - a very pretty spot.  We then cruised past a small wetland with ducks and crossed a County highway into the City of Carlton.  There is a section of the trail on the City street system, but it is very well signed and easy to follow.  The trail ends at Highway 210, right at the bike rental shop on the west end of Carlton.  We snaked our way through the community to the Willard Munger State Trail parking lot and picnic shelter.  We rested out of the sun under the shelter's roof.  After chatting with some other cyclists about trail conditions (parts of the Munger are still under repair after the crazy June 2012 flood) we got back in the saddles and retraced our route back to the truck.  Bergen wanted to go fast, and I wanted to test out the new bike's performance, so we hit the gas a bit and zipped down the trail at good clip and soon were back at the parking lot. 

Unfortunately, my hands really numbed up and hurt during the six mile ride.  Otherwise I felt pretty good on the very modest, but still my longest to this point, ride.  The other members of the family thought the ride was a bit hot, but fun.  We really like the St. Louis River Trail.

To watch a video describing how the St. Louis River Trail was planned and constructed, check out this you tube video.