Memorial Park Trail Report
Red Wing, MN
Memorial Park is on the bluffs and is
located south of Hwy 61 just outside of Red Wing, MN. There are two ways you
can get to the trails. You can drive to the top and start at the trail head at
the Lower Quarry parking area or you can drive to Mississippi Golf Links and
start at what is considered the Clubhouse Trail head. If starting at Mississippi
Golf Links you will be climbing the bluffs at the start of your run whereas if
you drive up to the top you will be running on the top of the bluffs on the
trails. There are still many hills to traverse on the trail so it really just
depends on whether you want to climb the bluff for about 2/3 of a mile to start
your run.
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| Clubhouse Trail head with maps |
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| Map showing the Bike trails in blue. |
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| This is ascending the hiking trail to the top of the Bluff. Pavement changes to dirt quickly |
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| Hiking trail to the top of the bluff. |
There are many trails available to run
while out there;
The Mountain Bike trail is single track
and includes many switchbacks. It is fun to run. There are a lot of rolling
hills along this route. There are some difficult offshoots to the bike trail
which includes steeper hills so if you are looking for some more intense hills
the black diamond paths are the ones to take.
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| Single track Mountain Bike Trails |
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| Single Track Mountain Bike Trails with Switchbacks |
There is the hiking trail which is
geared more towards hikers and includes more of the Prairies with grass and less
dirt. These are also wider trails and do not include the switchbacks like the
bike trail.
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| Prairie Sections of the trail. There are three Prairies, |
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| Prairie sections. Mostly you just run small sections of Prairie before getting back on the bike trail. |
Snowshoe trail has sections that are
single track dirt and skirt the Prairies. If starting at the
Clubhouse trailhead you can actually take the snowshoe trail up the bluff. This
is a steeper route than the hiking trail to the top. It is also single track
with lots more branches and leaves on the trail. This is a fun trail to run
down but definitely more technical than the hiking trail to the clubhouse.
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| Snowshoe Trail I discovered while running back down to the Clubhouse Trailhead |
The terrain on the Mountain Bike trail
includes dirt, many roots and sticks with some possible sections of meadow
running to link up the different sections.
Each time I go out there I find myself
on a different trail. I like to run the Mountain Bike trail counterclockwise as
the bikers ride it clockwise. It is safer to run opposite so you can see the
bikers coming and can get out of their way. It is the runners that need to
yield the trail to the bikers. The bike
trail is marked as a 7 mile loop but when out there running I tend to get about
6 miles on my Garmin watch. This may be because I do not always run all the
difficult (black diamond) sections.
Here is a map for the Mountain Bike Trails:
Here is the map to the Ski and Snowshoe
Trails:
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| Overlooking Red Wing as you run the edge of the bluffs |
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| Overlooking Red Wing residential areas |
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| Overlooking Hwy 58 which goes south of Red Wing |
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Today I ran 5.8 miles and discovered new trails that I had not discovered last year. This is a fun trail to run and it is fairly technical. Each time I run this trail it seems I get my foot caught in one of the many roots and end up in the dirt. This time I only fell once and practiced my tuck and roll technique! Must have done well as only managed to carry out some trail dirt with me and left no blood behind.
This is a great trail to run and I would highly recommend it.
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| Just a little bit of dirt |
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| Good thing I did not hurt myself when I landed on my hands. |
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| Garmin Elevation Chart for my run today. |
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| Just a quick selfie after my run! |
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