McHenry County Prairie Trail with stream of rushing water

I had actually only planned on taking 2 trails on my ride from Crystal Lake to South Elgin but ended up taking 4 different trails by accident. The 2 trails that I had planned to take are the McHenry County Prairie Trail (MCPT) and the Fox River Trail (FRT).

What happened is that I ended up on the Illinois Prairie Path (Elgin Branch) (IPP) south of the town of Elgin then took that trail to the new Stearns Road Trail (SRT) to get back on the FRT again in South Elgin.

I had this problem one other time many years ago when I missed the sign where the Fox River Trail runs into the Illinois Prairie Path and the IPP forks off to the left (as you head south).

I actually do not think I missed the sign this time because I think that there is now a break in the FRT south of the town of Elgin and the trail just turns into the IPP. There has often been trail construction and detours here over the years and I researched this on Google Maps and using Street View and I believe that you now need to take a few side roads in order to stay on the FRT all the way into the town of South Elgin.

I got a little obsessed with this break in the trail and if I missed a sign or not so on my next FRT ride I plan on going there first and exploring exactly what is going on there now. Just FYI, here is a link to the Break in the FRT on Google Maps. I believe that you can just hop on Raymond St. to Riverview Dr. to River Rd to get on the FRT again. These are all fairly secluded bike friendly roads and it’s a short distance.

OK, so much for the details on the Intersection of the FRT and the IPP and the break in the trail… getting back to my ride from Crystal Lake to South Elgin, I had a great ride! I actually started in Algonquin then went north to Crystal Lake (to Lake in the Hills Airport) then continued my adventure south to South Elgin.

The sun setting over the Fox River as seen from the bike trail

It was a beautiful day and I ended up riding 42 miles both ways. I have uploaded my ride details and map to the Garmin website (as usual) and you can see that GPS Map of this Ride on the Garmin site here. The interactive GPS map allows you to visualize this trip so much easier than words can describe.

I rode the same parts of the MCPP and the FRT a few days ago and posted the information in that in the previous blog post here, which included the information on the detour through Algonquin. This section trails is open and in good shape (other than the short detour through Algonquin). The parts of the other trails that I was on were also in good condition.

I haven’t taken a lot of bike trail photos recently so I decided to get a few new one of these trails on this ride. I still need not take a large amount of photos but I did take some as you can see in this blog post and I have also posted them on a Bike Trail Photo Page here on this website.

I actually did not get photos from the IPP or the new SRT though. Now that I have found the new Stearns Road Trail, I will have to ride, explore, photograph and write about that trail soon too. As I have said before “So many Trails… So Little TIme…”

You can find a lot more Fox River Trail photos (old and new) and information on the Fox River Trail pages on this website.

Although this page is labeled “Southern Section” I am planning a complete makeover of the Fox River Trail pages on this site soon so the Northern and Southern sections will be together.