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The Brainerd Lakes segment is the southern end of the Paul Bunyan State Trail, about 33 miles of paved rail grade from Crow Wing State Park to Pequot Lakes. It starts beside the Mississippi River where the Crow Wing River joins it, runs north past Northland Arboretum and through Baxter and Brainerd on short street connections, then settles into lake country. Merrifield, Lake Hubert, Nisswa, and Pequot Lakes follow at easy intervals, with resort lakes on both sides and old depots beside the trail. The riding is flat and straightforward, more sun than shade, and busy with town traffic in summer. Beyond Pequot Lakes the Pine River segment carries the trail north toward Hackensack.
Paul Bunyan State Trail: Brainerd Lakes
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Paul Bunyan State Trail: Brainerd Lakes has about 80 to 134 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: Brainerd Lakes!
In half of past years, color along the Paul Bunyan State Trail: Brainerd Lakes peaks October 3 to 12, typically around October 7. The trail has 23% deciduous coverage, with the majority being quaking aspen, northern red oak, and bur oak.
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 first miles out of Brainerd and its resort stations; the Nisswa depot and the 1918 Lake Hubert depot still stand beside the trail.
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