The trail network is the strongest amenity argument the Twin Ports have, and it is the one that most surprises people who move here for a job and stay for something else. A hiking trail runs the length of the city along the ridge. A mountain bike spine runs the length of it again, lower down. A paved rail trail leaves from Proctor and does not stop for seventy miles.
This list is sorted by what you actually want to do, not by length. There is a reason for that, and it is at the bottom.
A note on method. Every mileage below comes from the organisation that maintains or manages the trail: the Minnesota DNR, the Superior Hiking Trail Association, COGGS, the City of Duluth or the City of Superior. Where a figure measures something specific, we say which thing it measures, because several of these trails can be counted more than one way. Eight trails in our records have no published length, and rather than estimate them we have listed them at the bottom with what we do know.
If you want to hike
Superior Hiking Trail, Duluth section — 43 miles
Dirt footpath, rock and root, moderate. Trailheads on Skyline Parkway and at the major parks.
The unusual one. The Superior Hiking Trail is a long-distance route running most of the length of Minnesota's North Shore, and roughly 43 miles of it pass straight through Duluth, following the ridgeline above the neighborhoods and crossing every creek gorge on the way: Mission, Kingsbury, Keene, Chester, Tischer, Amity and finally the Lester River.
For residents this is not a backpacking trip, it is a lunch break. Trailheads sit on Skyline Parkway and at Lester Park, Chester Park, Hawk Ridge and Enger Park, so a two or three mile section is available from most east-side and hillside addresses without driving anywhere. Very few American cities have a genuine long-distance trail threaded through them at walking distance from ordinary houses.
Footing is classic North Shore: rock, root, and mud in spring, with a real climb at each ravine. It is maintained by the Superior Hiking Trail Association with volunteer crews and section adopters, open year round, and gets meaningful winter use on snowshoes.
If you want to mountain bike
Duluth is one of the strongest mountain bike cities in the Midwest, and this is the part of the amenity picture that is genuinely nationally competitive rather than merely good for its size.
Duluth Traverse — 40-mile spine
Singletrack. Green to black, mostly intermediate. Spring to fall for dirt, groomed for fat bikes in winter.
The backbone. The Duluth Traverse spine runs about 40 miles from Chambers Grove in the west to Lester Park in the east, and COGGS puts the wider network it connects at over 90 total miles across five main trail centers. Those are two different numbers measuring two different things, and we are giving you both rather than the bigger one on its own.
Access from Lester Park, Hartley Park, Piedmont, Mission Creek and Spirit Mountain. Flow trail, technical rock, real climbing, and fat biking through the winter.
Mission Creek — about 23 miles
Singletrack and dirt, easy to intermediate. Trailhead off Highway 23 between Fond du Lac and Gary-New Duluth.
The western end, and the quieter half of the network. Mission Creek runs flow lines through a creek valley with a Duluth Traverse connection, hiking use as well as riding, and fat biking in winter. If you are looking at houses in Fond du Lac, Gary-New Duluth or Smithville, this is the system at your back door and it is a serious one.
Piedmont — about 17 miles
Rocky singletrack, intermediate to advanced. Trailhead off Skyline Parkway.
The technical one. Piedmont carries rocky descents, hillside climbs and rock overlooks above Lincoln Park and Duluth Heights, with cross-country ski and fat bike use in winter.
A measurement note worth knowing, because you will see a bigger number elsewhere: COGGS gives the combined Piedmont and Brewer system as about 17 miles of trail, and separately notes that because the trails are two-way you can ride roughly 30 miles without repeating yourself. Those describe the same ground. We publish the 17.
If you want pavement
Willard Munger State Trail — 70 miles
Paved. Trailheads at Proctor, Carlton and Hinckley.
The long one, and one of the longest paved rail trails in the country. The Minnesota DNR states that the Hinckley to Duluth segment is 70 miles and completely paved, running through Carlton and past Jay Cooke State Park, with snowmobile use on designated segments in winter.
For Proctor, Esko, Cloquet and Bayview Heights households this is the headline recreational asset, and it is the reason a road bike or a touring bike makes sense in a region otherwise dominated by dirt.
Gitchi-Gami State Trail — over 36 miles completed
Paved, separated from the highway, easy. Segments from Two Harbors toward Grand Marais.
The shoreline ride. The DNR describes several completed segments totaling over 36 miles of a planned 86-mile route from Two Harbors to Grand Marais, including the Silver Creek Cliff segment and connections at Gooseberry Falls, Split Rock, Beaver Bay and Silver Bay.
Read that as segments, not a continuous 86 miles. The finished parts are excellent and separated from Highway 61 traffic; the gaps between them are real and you will meet the highway.
The Lakewalk — 7 miles
Paved asphalt with boardwalk sections, flat, year round with winter plowing on parts.
The one everybody uses. The Lakewalk runs about seven miles of car-free shoreline from Canal Park northeast past Leif Erikson Park and the London Road avenue ends to Brighton Beach, with benches, pause areas and lake views the whole way.
It is the single amenity that most changes daily life for East End, Congdon Park, Lakeside and Canal Park households, because it is walkable from the front door rather than driven to. See walking the Lakewalk end to end for the full route.
Osaugie Trail, Superior — 5 miles
Asphalt, flat, year round.
The Wisconsin-side equivalent, and underrated. The Osaugie Trail runs from the US 2/53 junction near Barker's Island east to Moccasin Mike Road along the Superior Bay shoreline, with access to Barker's Island and the SS Meteor and a connection on toward Wisconsin Point.
Flat, paved and quiet, which makes it the easiest family ride in the region. For Superior and East End Superior households it does the job the Lakewalk does in Duluth.
If you have an hour and want the prettiest three miles
Seven Bridges Road — 3 miles
Paved road with stone arch bridges. Closed to vehicles in winter; walking and skiing year round.
Seven Bridges Road climbs Amity Creek from Lester Park up to Skyline Parkway, crossing the stream on stone arch bridges the whole way, with small falls and swimming holes at intervals. Three miles, and the best short walk or bike climb in the city. There are nine bridges, not seven, and there always have been.
The eight we cannot give you a length for
These are real trails in our records with no published mileage from the managing organisation, so we have not estimated one:
Duluth Cross City Trail, Western Waterfront Trail, Waabizheshikana (the Marten Trail), Hermantown Connector Trail, Tri-County Corridor, Sonju Trail in Two Harbors, and two further Superior Hiking Trail divisions — the Jay Cooke section and the North Shore section beyond Duluth.
The SHT ones are worth explaining, because the gap is deliberate rather than sloppy. The Superior Hiking Trail Association publishes mileage by its own division boundaries, and those divisions do not line up with a state park boundary or a city limit. Publishing an in-park figure for Jay Cooke by taking a share of a 50-mile division would be inventing a number, so that field is empty on purpose.
Why this list is not ranked by length
Because length is close to useless here. The 70-mile Munger and the 3-mile Seven Bridges Road are not competing for the same afternoon, and eight of the seventeen trails in our records have no published length at all, so any ranking would silently be a ranking of which trails happen to have a measured number. That is the kind of list that looks authoritative and tells you nothing.
What actually decides which trail you use is distance from your door, and that maps onto neighborhoods more than it maps onto mileage. The east side and hillside get the Superior Hiking Trail and the Duluth Traverse. Piedmont and Duluth Heights get the technical riding. The far west gets Mission Creek. Proctor and the Carlton County towns get the Munger. Canal Park and the East End get the Lakewalk. Superior gets the Osaugie.
And check the season. Skyline Parkway sections and Seven Bridges Road close to vehicles in winter, the dirt systems switch to fat bike and ski, and the Gitchi-Gami's grooming varies by segment. Nothing here shuts down for the winter; most of it changes use. That is the actual Twin Ports pattern, and it is why people who move here for a summer job end up buying skis.
Related: Duluth's best overlooks for the ridge above these trails, walking the Lakewalk end to end, and how bad is a Duluth winter really for what the seasonal switch actually involves.