England-Idlewild Park

The England-Idlewild park in Burlington, KY is a beautiful place for walk. I can't believe I have lived in Northern KY for four years and am just now discovering this treasure. Maybe because the main attraction for the park is miles of single-track mountain bike trails. I don't have a mountain bike, and I prefer not to get run over by them while hiking, so I never ventured out there. However, while looking on line for new places to hike, I stumbled across an advertisement for multi-use trails at the England-Idlewild park. Turns out they welcome hikers out there so I thought I would give it a try. If there were too many bikers, I wouldn't return.

The weather was beautiful on the day I went, sunny, breezy and cool. It felt like autumn! I was captivated by the fields of flowers along the paved trail. A walk around this park was an tremendous spirit booster for me.

To sum it up, the park was awesome and I will definitely return. 

They have a 2-mile paved trail (pictured here) and a 6+-mile dirt trail. I say 6+ because you could get turn around back there and do circles for hours and hours; the trails cross and weave and the forest is thick enough to not see and zigzagging course. The forest is such that you cannot see or hear civilization either. You really feel like you are in the wilderness. There were lots of elevation changes and creek crossings as well. I can see how portions of these trails could be technically challenging for a bike. They had the trials marked for intermediate, advanced, technical, etc. 

The day I was out there is was not crowded either, which is strange since the weather was so nice and it was a Sunday. Not sure where all of the people were but I only encountered a few bikers and they were very nice about going around me or slowing so I could step onto the trail's edge to let them pass.

I can't say enough about the beauty of the wild flowers.