Paved Walking Trails

I wouldn't walk or hike a paved trail on any regular basis unless is I was a city dweller. It isn't good for the feet or knees. Great for bikes and wheelchairs. I have never seen wheelchairs on the paved trails I know about even in the city.

I'm 14 miles from the paved 18 mile B&O trail, but the bikes whiz by pedestrians so fast that it's scary. Weather permitting, we used to walk the dirt loop trail through a nature park just 5 miles away before they started building a boardwalk around it. So now we usually just walk around a local cemetery. What's great about it is that each loop is 1/4 mile, so it's easy to figure out how far you've walked. So far the "residents" have been quiet, but then I don't walk at night.

We drive our ponies, but sadly our county roads are steep and curvy and have no shoulders, so driving on them would require a serious death wish. Our hills have an abundance of logging roads, but the gravel is of the huge, sharp variety that damages horse feet and punctures tires. Fortunately, we have a beautiful rails-to-trails route minutes from our house, so we haul out and drive the horses on that. It's paved (tarmac) in some places, gravel in others. In soggy western Oregon, any dirt paths are unusable November through June. Our section currently stretches only about five miles, but is slowly being completed; beginning at the next town, it goes for 30 miles or more.

We frequently meet up with hikers, bicyclists dog-walkers, families with little kids, horseback riders, etc., and have found it to be a magnet for friendly, considerate folk. No speeding F150s, ATVs or dirt bikes, no free-runing pitbulls, no property owners guarding illegal operations. The only drawback is that everyone wants to meet our horses, and how can we complain about that?

The trail is about 50-100 feet from a major highway, yet a world apart. Despite its proximity, there are still those of lesser intelligence who test Darwin's theory by riding their bikes on the highway sans helmets when they could ride safely on the trail.

To those who scorn these trails, feel free not to use them -- your loss.

My first reaction to the original question was that when I was a kid they called them sidewalks and they were all over the city. We could walk to school, to the store, to the library, to the park, the pool, the movie theatre....

Now we live in the country, we have to go to town to get to the paved walking trails. Out here they aren't paved. You have to climb over stiles to start walking on the trails and over roots and around puddles while you are walking, but there is a lovely dirt base that is very quiet underfoot.

I have one withen 1/4 mile.

Its a rail to trail path.

I live on one end and bike to the other quite often (9 miles one way) they are extending it soon in both directions to connect to other rail-trails.

I'm glad they have one as riding your bike on the narrow busy roads is practically a death sentence around here.

And you know what? I really don't see flabby tourists using it....I see a lot of locals walking dogs, jogging, bike racing groups, families, bike riders, and older walkers using it....BTW, I AM flabby and I back pack off the beaten path quite often Most of the time I don't even USE a path....paved or otherwise....

The snobbery in this thread astounds me....

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It's not that I don't like mankind, I just like nature a whole lot more.