I have ridden most parts of the Millennium Trail (MT) and the North Shore Bike Path (NSBP) in the past but had never ridden the far eastern part of the MT or the far western part of the NSBP and since both parts of these trails run parallel to Route 176 I was curious if the 2 trails connected to each other. 

First, I researched this on Google Maps, which is a great way to check out trail connections or new trails and new bike routes. You can start out with Map View and zoom in to where you are planning your ride then check out the actual terrain with Satellite View or zoom in further for the Street View if it is available. Google does not have all of the smaller trails listed in their mapped areas but they do have most of the longer trails.

Anyway, I found that the 2 trails do NOT connect directly to each other but you can take the MT east to Midlothian Road then ride alongside Hawley Street on the sidewalks (or on the street if you don’t mind riding in traffic) to get to the NSBP at Carmel Catholic HS.

You can get a good idea about the routes on Google Maps but I wanted to see what it was like first hand so I headed out to the Country Bumpkin Nursery ~ at Gilmer Road and 176, which is where I wanted to start my trip east ~ to check it out this trail connection.

My experience on this ride was that the eastern part of the MT was not all that great but it was paved and straight so you could go fairly fast if you like, the trip through Mundelein on the sidewalks pretty much sucked and the western part of the NSBP was actually pretty nice.

I also did a short ride on the Des Plaines River Trail (DPRT) when I got to it from the NSBP. The DPRT is actually one of my favorite trails in the area.

So in addition to this blog post, I wrote up the details on this ride along with photos and the GPS Maps of the rides on the following pages: Millennium Trail Connection to North Shore Bike Path and the NSBP West End Photo Page.

So many trails… so little time…