Parks & recreation in Silver Bay, Minnesota
Part of the Silver Bay neighborhood guide. Back to the full guide.
This is among the best outdoor settings in the guide, and for the price of the housing it is not close.
Tettegouche State Park is four miles northeast and is one of the great Minnesota state parks: Palisade Head, a rhyolite cliff standing several hundred feet straight out of the lake and one of the few places in the state where people climb above open water; High Falls on the Baptism River; a set of inland lakes; and a large trail network. The Superior Hiking Trail runs the ridge above Silver Bay and through the park, and this stretch includes some of the most dramatic sections of the entire trail.
Black Beach sits below town: dark sand, Lake Superior shoreline, a city campground, and day use. Its industrial origin makes it one of the more unusual public beaches anywhere.
Going southwest, Split Rock Lighthouse State Park is about 20 minutes, Gooseberry Falls about 25, and Flood Bay and Two Harbors beyond that. The Gitchi-Gami State Trail has completed paved segments through the Silver Bay and Beaver Bay area, giving car-free riding along the shore. Going northeast, the Lutsen ski hills are about 45 minutes.
Inland, Lake County's forest roads and groomed trails carry snowmobiling and cross-country skiing all winter, and the inland lakes carry fishing year-round. Within the town itself, the original planning left sidewalks and level streets, which makes ordinary walking easier here than in most communities this size.
Winter: snowmobiling on the inland network, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing at Tettegouche, ice climbing on the North Shore ice, downhill skiing at Lutsen about 45 minutes northeast, ice fishing on the inland lakes.
Parks
The city's shoreline park below the plant, whose striking dark sand is a byproduct of taconite tailings dumped offshore in the 1960s. Now a city-run beach and campground and one of the most photographed spots in Lake County.
The state park immediately northeast, holding Palisade Head, the Baptism River falls, and some of the most dramatic cliff scenery on the North Shore.
The 1910 light on the cliff, about 20 minutes southwest along MN 61.
The city's small-craft harbor on the lake below town.
Trails
The ridge-line footpath, which runs directly above the town and through Tettegouche, including some of the most dramatic sections of the whole trail.
The paved North Shore trail, with completed segments through the Silver Bay and Beaver Bay area toward Split Rock.
The inland trail network on county and state forest land, used heavily for snowmobiling and skiing.
Parks & recreation next door
Thirty minutes southwest, the county seat, with the hospital, the larger school, and full services.
Knife RiverForty-five minutes southwest on the shore, a much smaller and much more expensive shoreline community in the same district.
North Shore (Duluth)The Duluth end of the same shoreline, about an hour southwest.
LakesideDuluth's east-side family neighborhood, about an hour southwest and the nearest full urban services.
Lester ParkThe east edge of Duluth, on the way down the shore.