elm creek park reserve

I love riding my bike through this park. In the winter, when we have snow, they have great classic XC ski trails. I love the picnic areas and the many options that are available for recreation. It's close to my house and I use it frequently. It's beautiful and has great vistas to enjoy while biking, hiking, skiing or whatever you enjoy doing.

I love parking at coon Rapids dam and taking the bike path to elm creek. Very good workout and very pretty ride. Path is well maintained and elm creek is always clean and beautiful.

Beautiful area to go biking! The scenery is very picturesque. You feel like you've driven 4 hours north of Minneapolis to go up the lake! Excellent for families, and/or individual outdoor enthusiasts.

We were introduced to Elm Creek Reserve, located on the north west edge of the Twin Cities, through the CheckPoint Minnesota program. While on our winter scavenger hunt, we realized Elm Creek is huge, with so many opportunities for winter recreation. Skiing, ski-jouring, tubing, sledding, hiking. Most of the people on this cold day were there to downhill ski. They have a big chalet there, and offer cross-country and downhill lessons. Farther down, the Reserve includes a swimming pond and a huge playground for kids. I am guessing this is a busy place on a hot summer day. Everywhere we turned, something great for families. It was a -30 below windchill when we visited, so, though tempted to hike around, we will save it for a warmer day and stop by the Visitor Center as well. We will be back---I want to explore Elm Creek!

This park is good in all seasons. Summer has a nice man made beach and the biking trails are terrific. If you want to have a cookout, this is the place to have it. It's clean and maintained. Winter gives you snowboarding and tubing. Snowshoeing is a blast and the people are great.

Amazing trails - biked here in winter on Fat Bike - they groom the trails, was there for the Frozen 40 2015, amazing area, would go back to bike there again.

Enjoyed the picnic pavillion before it got too cold. The only complaint was the garbages were nearly full. Not bad in November but would be awful if it was July and fly season. Hopefully they keep up on that during busy seasons. Nice areas for sports and a great kid area for play.

We visited this place about a week ago for our first sledding and snow tubing attempt ever with our 5 kids. The range in age from 3-14 and everyone enjoyed it (including us grown ups). Now granted we have never ever gone sledding or tubing before much less had much experience with snow but this place appeared to have it all for every skill level!

This is a top-notch park. They have a huge, upscale playground that is one of the best in the Twin Cities. I also like the disc golf course which is converted into snowtubing courses in the winter. Note that while there is no fee to enter the park, it costs $5 to play disc golf. I also saw some really nice walking/biking trails which were well-lit. I believe they can also be used for cross-country skiing in the winter.

Great entertainment or the money! $15 for 2 hours of fun! Everything was very clean and well run! Warming hut was very nice!

Been visiting this park for over 30 years now. Was just there last Sunday with my dog and walked through the woods for over an hour. This park is so beautiful with lot so deer, squirrels, birds, etc. that I always end up taking too many photos! Anyways, in the winter there is cross country and downhill skiing, a tubing hill, and even a sliding hill for the kids. You don't want to miss the exciting activities that they have going on at the Eastman Nature Center for both young and old alike! Check it out, you won't be disappointed!

I like to hike and during daytime it's so fun to hike the many, many trails at this park. It's scenic, well preserved, facilities are nice. It offers so many activities from swimming, skiing, horse riding, hiking, cross country, running, bike trails (really neat bike trails), and much more. It's enormous and fun to try the different trails.

I needed some exercise and I saw this park was only a few miles from my hotel. There are paved paths but I enjoyed the dirt trails that apparently are used for cross country skiing in the winter. The fresh air and seeing deer and ducks were the perfect remedy. There are lots of of other features in the park

5,000 acre park in the north metro cities of Maple Grove, Champlin and Dayton. A great park to do almost anything in though I mostly bike in it. Being so large many people have a difficulty finding there way around I find myself helping people with directions A LOT. Before you head out visit their website and print yourself off a map, grab on at the chalet or snap a picture of a map in the park. Over the years I have also found myself in trouble with the Park Police so make sure to check out their set of ordinances (THEY ARE ENFORCED). But overall it is just a great spot to get out and enjoy natural of all kinds.

I've been here many times in the past mostly for hiking. This last time at the end of September I went for a huge 14+ mile hike. This park is actually quite large. The main entrance is in Maple Grove but my hike on the paths out here took me thru Champlin and Dayton as well. The colors here are just starting to turn to fall so now is the time to come out and hike or bike. I hiked the paved trail and took a ten mile loop by Champlin and thats where I began to see the Salamanders. I'm not sure where they were going but in this little area of the park I saw about 4 large salamanders walking somewhere. They were all crossing the path pretty near each other. I do a lot of hiking but this is the first time I have ever seen a bunch of salamanders walking around. It was extremely cool. Overall this is one of the best parks in the cities.