I’ve been out to a couple different parts of the Des Plaines River Trail (DPRT) this summer and have been meaning to post the updates… so here are updates!

My initial goal was to check out the New Extension to the trail between Deerfied Road and the Lincolnshire Marriot where you used to have to go out to a dirt path or the sidewalk along Milwaukee Road between Aptakisic Road and the Cubby Bear sports bar/restaurant. I had heard that this had been completed but had not had a chance to check it out yet. I will get back to that in a moment.

DPRT in terrible condition between Northbrook and Wheeling

So my first attempt was to get on the trail at Euclid Ave ~ in Northbrook ~ and head north to Half Day ~ and beyond if I had enough time.

Well, it turned out that the DPRT in this area is in Terrible Condition. Especially the part of the trail from Algauer’s Restaurant to Patawatomi woods in Wheeling.

The trail has a lot of pot holes and loose gravel in places in this stretch. It looks like they had some heavy duty equipment out on the trail removing trees. I guess it is OK for a good mountain bike but it was terrible for my road/path bike.

The entire northern Cook County part of the trail is not in very good condition compared to the Lake County parts of the trail which are mostly really nice.

So back to my ride… with the slow, rugged path, we only made it to Patawatmoi Woods in Wheeling and I was glad to turn back from there.

DPRT Trail Extension North of the Cubby Bear

My next DPRT ride, a week later, I started just south of Lake Cook Road heading north and this was a much nicer ride. We made it to and through the New Trail Extention ~ shown in the photo ~ and to Wright Woods, just north of Half Day. This was a Great Ride!

The DPRT trail extension is one of the only parts of the Des Plaines River Trail that is paved. The paved stretch isn’t very long but the crushed stone part of the trail is in great condition in this area too.

The Trail Extension is a very welcome improvement! I would often avoid this part of the trail since I had to go out to busy Milwaukee Avenue for a stretch and then get back on the regular trail again.

It is still a little bit of a pain to have to cross Half Day Road (Route 22) at Route 45 but there are lights there and when there is traffic you just have to wait a little. Then the rest of the trail north of there is really nice.

So before writing this blog post, I updated the Des Plaines River Trail photo pages and ride reports on this site since I had photos and descriptions of how you would have to get around this part of the trail.

I kept the old photos on a separate page (for nostalgia and trail history) and included the new one on the original page.

See the New DPRT Extension North of Cubby Bear page here for the photos and descriptions of this section and The Old Path Along Milwaukee Avenue page here for the historical look at this part of the trail.