Kettle Moraine south

[Earthman]

i am going on a 4 day hiking trip in a couple of weeks doing 50 miles of the ice age trail has any one biked the trails around the Kettle Moraine south area i was thinking about staying an extra day and biking them but do nto want to waist the gas driving by me self if the trails suck

[cheese4brains]

The John Muir trail system is located in Kettle Moriane south, and I thoroughly enjoyed it last year. It's regarded as one of the best single track trail systems in Wisconsin, but it's also one of the busiest (from what I hear). More info can be found in this thread:

http://www.morcmtb.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10935&highlight=muir

Good luck!

[Kiecker]

Make sure you do the full monty including the connector trail and emma carten(sp?). I used to ride there a lot. The blue loop is what WEMS just used this past weekend for the 12 hour race. The full monty is 25 miles. Park closes at 10pm I believe too. Night riding there is a blast!

[jeffgude]

Thats where I learned to ride off-road. Those trails are a lot of fun. They've changed a lot since the mid 90s when I lived there, those trails were a perfect example of unsustainable trail design. Many of the steep climbs have been rerouted, but there are a lot of roots, rocks, etc everywhere and its still definitely worth a ride - 25 miles of singletrack. I would try to plan your ride there on a weekday, as on the weekends those trails are absolutely teeming with people who've driven up from Chicagoland for the day. There will be literally a couple hundred cars at the trailhead.

[Earthman]

thanks for all the info i think i will end up staying an extra day or 2 if i do not have any work going on that week so i can hit the trail that tuesday

[jeffgude]

Rode the Kettle Moraine trails last week, first time in a couple years. There is a lot of new singletrack, especially in the Emma Carlin and connector segments. Lots of nice bench-cut singletrack; some (not all) of the washed-out climbs have been rerouted; the trail has been armored in a couple places; if you ride everything its a 27 mile, 3 hour loop. If you haven't been there its worth the trip. Avoid weekends if possible due to heavy trail use.