Parks & recreation in Irving, Duluth, Minnesota
Part of the Irving neighborhood guide. Back to the full guide.
Irving is better served for everyday recreation than most of West Duluth, and that is largely down to one park.
Irving Park and Playfield sits inside the neighborhood with ball fields, a playground and open space. It is the everyday infrastructure that Cody and Fairmount lack, and it is where the neighborhood's summer evenings happen.
Grassy Point reaches into the St. Louis Bay at the southern edge, giving genuine water frontage and estuary birding. The estuary here has been through decades of restoration work coordinated in part through the St. Louis River Alliance, and it is a considerably better place than it was a generation ago.
Keene Creek runs through the neighborhood on its way down from the hillside.
Beyond the edges, the Lake Superior Zoo is four minutes west in Fairmount, Wade Stadium four minutes northeast, and Indian Point Park with its riverside campground about six minutes southwest in Norton Park. The Willard Munger State Trail's trailhead at 75th Avenue West gives 70 paved car-free miles running south through Jay Cooke.
For riding, the Duluth Cross City Trail is the important one: paved, car-free, and running northeast toward the Bayfront and downtown from flat ground. Up the hill, Spirit Mountain and the Duluth Traverse singletrack are about ten minutes.
Winter: outdoor rinks and winter use at Irving Park, downhill skiing at Spirit Mountain, fat biking on the Duluth Traverse, snowmobiling on the Munger corridor, sledding.
Water access: Grassy Point on the St. Louis Bay at the neighborhood's southern edge; Keene Creek through the neighborhood; Boat landings on the St. Louis River corridor southwest.
Parks
The neighborhood's own park and playfield, and one of the better everyday recreation spaces in West Duluth.
The point of land on the St. Louis Bay at the neighborhood's southern edge, and Irving's water frontage.
The creek corridor running through and above the neighborhood.
The city zoo in adjoining Fairmount, about four minutes west.
West Duluth's historic ballpark, about four minutes northeast.
The riverside park and campground southwest in Norton Park.
Trails
The paved cross-town route running northeast toward the Bayfront and downtown, and the best car-free riding from this neighborhood.
Access: West Duluth corridor
The paved rail trail running 70 miles south through Jay Cooke toward Hinckley.
Access: Norton Park trailhead at 75th Avenue West
The city-spanning singletrack spine, up the hill in about ten minutes.
Access: Spirit Mountain and Piedmont trailheads
Parks & recreation next door
Immediately north, the main street where almost every errand from Irving actually happens.
FairmountWest, with the Lake Superior Zoo and the two creek corridors.
Norton ParkSouth and west, with Indian Point, the Munger trailhead and the Western Waterfront Trail.
OneotaNortheast along the bay, a similar era of housing with better connections and more noise.
DenfeldNorth, more housing stock, the high school and the nearest published median.