Green Lakes State Park
Date of Run: 12/1
Time: 12:04 pm
Route: Counterclockwise Loop course starting from Quarry parking lot (Deer Run Trail) up farmers hill to to the Serengeti with a small loop around the Black Trail back to the Serengeti intersection (in the middle). Then over and back down the Deer Run Trail to the Quarry Parking Lot.
Distance: 3.91 miles
Elevation Gain: 450 ft
Terrain: Non-technical, grassy with a short gravel/rocky section from the Quarry Parking Lot (maybe .25 miles), slightly muddy due to the rain.
Weather: 43 F, Overcast with a light drizzle and breeze.
Summary: Full disclosure, I consider Green Lakes State Park my home course and have run A LOT of miles there! I know the trails really well and don’t typically follow any certain pattern.
On this particular day I saw very few people. I only needed 3 miles so I parked off of 290 in the Quarry Lot and did a loop from there. On this side of GL in order to get anywhere you have to go uphill so I was expecting to climb a bit. There was a little bit of mud in some spots but nothing that I had to dodge or made it too difficult to run.
This run was a small loop but I’ll expand my entry by saying Green Lakes has trails for every level of trail runner and if you do some homework you can get quite a bit of elevation too! If you stick to the outermost trails, including the lakes, it’s pretty easy to get a solid 10 miles in, even more if you double back and criss-cross trails throughout the park One of my favorite things about GL is how it changes throughout the year but is still runnable all year round. The trails range from rooty and technical to flat and fast. Unless you include the campgrounds and a short section around the beach there is no pavement so on a 10 miler you’d be on a type of trail for about 9.5 miles of it. There’s a mixture of terrain too, crushed gravel, mulch, dirt/mud, grassy, and gravel.
All in all, GL is a great place for a new trail runner because you can get creative with distances and terrain to gain some confidence on the trails.
