A couple years ago I picked up this book: The Best Hikes Near Indianapolis . I found out about a bunch of little parks and nature preserves I didn't know we had. They are not back country, overnight type deals. They are mostly little day hikes, usually less than a few miles. Most are pretty well-maintained tracks. The book shows 44 different trails. Some are at the same park. Two are at Turkey Run, for example. All of them are within an hour and a half, or so, of Indianapolis.
The year I got the book, my girlfriend and I started knocking them off the list one weekend at a time. We did about 20 of them that year but work got in the way and we didn't finish. We just picked it back up this weekend and started knocking them off the list again. Today we did two small trails at Big Walnut Nature Preserve near Bainbridge, IN. They were short, easy trails. 1.1 miles and 1.8 miles. It was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
If you're looking for some little day hikes around Indianapolis, this book does a pretty good job of showing you where to go. It includes a high-level trail map, narrative descriptions of the trails, and driving directions to the trail heads or parks. I'm sure we could find all the same info on the internet, but I think it was worth buying just to have the info in one place and get us off the couch on the weekends.
Some pics of the Big Walnut trails today:
The year I got the book, my girlfriend and I started knocking them off the list one weekend at a time. We did about 20 of them that year but work got in the way and we didn't finish. We just picked it back up this weekend and started knocking them off the list again. Today we did two small trails at Big Walnut Nature Preserve near Bainbridge, IN. They were short, easy trails. 1.1 miles and 1.8 miles. It was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
If you're looking for some little day hikes around Indianapolis, this book does a pretty good job of showing you where to go. It includes a high-level trail map, narrative descriptions of the trails, and driving directions to the trail heads or parks. I'm sure we could find all the same info on the internet, but I think it was worth buying just to have the info in one place and get us off the couch on the weekends.
Some pics of the Big Walnut trails today:
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