I was doing some research on the northern end of the Des Plaines River Trail (DPRT) since I had some new trail photos to post of this part of the trail. I often use Google Maps and Google Street View to find new trails and to check out the locations and surroundings of new trails or trails that I have ridden.

Panoramic View of DPRT North

As I was checking out the part of the DPRT that I rode, I clicked on the brown line for the trail (you need to select the “Bicycling” option in Google Maps to see the trails). When I did this a small photo of the trail popped up at the bottom of the screen – I clicked on the photo and got a Google Street View of the DPRT bike trail! It is probably more accurate to call this a Trail View but Google uses the term Street View for all of its zoomed-in 3D images within Google Maps.

So the Trail View of the Des Plaines River Trail works just like any other Street View in Google Maps. You can click on the arrow image imposed on the photo to move further down the trail or click and drag any part of the photo to turn around and/or see any other part of that 3D, spherical photo.

Just to be clear, the Google Street View option is not just a 360 degree photo and it is not a video. It is a series of photos that allows you to see all around the point where the photo(s) were taken – front, back, sides, and up and down. Then you can move forward, backwards, etc. (with the arrows) to the next spherical photo. How cool is that!

So back to the Des Plaines River Trail, I discovered that the entire northern part of this trail (the Lake County section) has Street View available. So in addition to a real world ride you can also take a virtual ride of this part of the trail.

Here’s a link to the Trail View option on the DPRT going through Half Day Forest Preserve.

I also discovered that one part of the Oak Leaf Trail (OLT), in Wisconsin south of Milwaukee also has the Street/View Trail/View option. Here’s a link to the Trail View part of the OLT south of Milwaukee.

I’m sure that are other “Trail View” trails out there but these are the only 2 that I have found so far.

The Photos and Trail Pages on This Site

As for the photos that I had of the northern end of the DPRT – like the panoramic view above, I decided not to post them since you can see so much more with the Trail View option on this part of the trail.

Way back when I first started this website (14 years ago), one of my goals was to document, photograph and video record the trails that I had ridden in order to pass this information on to the visitors of this site. Well Google Street View (Trail View) blows away some of the need for that.

Since Google Street View (Trail View) is not available on all that many trails (yet) I will still be photographing, documenting and video recording as many new trails as I can. I also think that there is still a need for good photos, artistic photos, videos and first hand ride reports of the trails.

So with all that said, feel free to check out the large number Ride Reports, Photos and Videos of Chicagoland and Wisconsin Trails on this site.