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The Bemidji segment is the northern end of the Paul Bunyan State Trail, about 38 paved miles from Walker to Lake Bemidji State Park. From the Highway 34 trailhead at Walker it heads northwest on the old rail grade past a lake access at Benedict and through the small towns of Laporte, Guthrie, and Nary, a quiet forested stretch with few services between stops. In Bemidji the route uses city streets, then follows the shore of Lake Bemidji, crosses the young Mississippi River where it leaves the lake, and finishes at the state park, where the unpaved Blue Ox Trail continues north. South of Walker the Chippewa segment climbs into the national forest hills.
Paul Bunyan State Trail: Bemidji
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Paul Bunyan State Trail: Bemidji has about 81 to 131 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, e-biking, running, biking, walking, and birding, with May, June, and September the best months.
Hourly comfort scores for the next 15 days of weather, tuned to your activity and your own thresholds.
Plan your visit to this trail. Get the best windows for a comfortable outing.
Enjoy the Paul Bunyan State Trail: Bemidji!
In half of past years, color along the Paul Bunyan State Trail: Bemidji peaks September 28 to October 7, typically around October 2. The trail has 29% deciduous coverage, with the majority being quaking aspen, bur oak, and paper birch.
The Brainerd and Northern Minnesota Railway laid this line north out of Brainerd in 1893 to reach the pine forests around Leech Lake. Red River oxcarts had already worn the Woods Trail past the village of Crow Wing at the south end, and George Barclay's 1873 trading post on the Pine River marked the way north. The rails reached Bemidji in December 1898. In 1900 the Northern Pacific folded the line into its new Minnesota and International Railway, a through route to International Falls. Logs and lumber were the first cargo, and Pine River still took daily carloads of western lumber in the line's last years. The Northern Pacific became part of Burlington Northern in 1970. In 1983 Burlington Northern decided to vacate the line, and the Pine River Chamber of Commerce asked the state to buy the whole corridor for a trail. The last train ran on August 15, 1985. The Legislature authorized the Paul Bunyan State Trail in 1988, and the first 50 miles from Brainerd to Hackensack opened in October 1992. The trail has since more than doubled in length, reaching Lake Bemidji State Park, and a six-mile extension reached Crow Wing State Park in 2012. The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy inducted it into its Hall of Fame in 2011. This segment holds the line's final push: the grade cut through Laporte in spring 1898, and the trail's last extension carried it around Lake Bemidji to the state park.
Blue Ox TrailHeartland State TrailMississippi River Trail
