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The Pine River segment runs about 26 paved miles from Pequot Lakes north to Hackensack through Jenkins, Pine River, and Backus. This is the most open stretch of the Paul Bunyan State Trail: meadows, farm fields, and wetlands on a nearly straight rail grade. The trail crosses the Pine River on a bridge at the town of the same name, near a park, a dam, and a swimming beach, and Backus adds a beach on Pine Mountain Lake. Hackensack, with Lucette on the shore of Birch Lake, closes the segment. South of Pequot Lakes the Brainerd Lakes segment continues; north of Hackensack the Chippewa segment leaves the rail grade for the forest hills.
Paul Bunyan State Trail: Pine River
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Paul Bunyan State Trail: Pine River has about 86 to 133 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: Pine River!
In half of past years, color along the Paul Bunyan State Trail: Pine River peaks September 30 to October 9, typically around October 4. The trail has 27% 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 is the trail's birthplace: Pine River's chamber passed the first resolution for the trail, and Hackensack was the north end of the 50 miles that opened in 1992.
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