Hiking Cottage Grove Ravine Park

I bought this book called Best Hikes of the Twin Cities by Kate Havelin.  It has a list of 31 parks in Minneapolis, St. Paul and the Greater Metro Area.

Each park profile lists the park’s location, directions for how to get there, an overview/history of the park, recommended trails, types of terrain, facilities, costs and contacts.  The author breaks the parks down into several groups:

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  • Kate’s Top 10
  • Night Hikes
  • Hilly Hikes
  • Easy Hikes
  • Birding Hikes
  • Wildflower Hikes
  • Winter Hikes
  • River Hikes
  • Bike Trails

The only thing that I don’t like about the book’s layout are the maps of the park trails.  They’re not very detailed, and the only information that most of the maps provide is the general shape of the “featured” trail.  Accessory/alternate trails aren’t shown and the landmarks are kind of iffy, especially for forested areas.  I’ve tried to use the maps as trail guides a few times and have ended up off the path and unable to make my way back to the “main” route.

But I do like the book for finding and trying out new parks.  Last week we decided that we wanted to take a hilly hike that wasn’t too far away, and using the guide we ended up at Cottage Grove Ravine Park in Cottage Grove Minnesota.  The park in all of it’s autumn splendor and the hills weren’t crazy steep or abundant.  There area was lush, the paths were well-tended, and the lake was very pretty.  There weren’t a lot of people taking advantage of the park, so we felt like we had the entire place to ourselves.

Hiking Cottage Grove Ravine Park
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