QUICK TRAIL FACTS
- Preserve Size: 67 acres
- Trail Mileage: ~1.5 miles round trip
- Pets: yes
- Difficulty: easy
- Sights: Swan Lake, beach, playgrounds
I highly recommend visiting this state park during the off-season, when you must leave your car behind the gates and walk the 0.7 miles or so down the paved drive to the beach. You might even have the place to yourself.
Important note: the driveway descends fairly steeply down to the beach, so while it’s not difficult, it does require some effort to return!
Once you’re down at the beach, which is not of the finest, pure white sand, but is perfectly adequate, you’ll find a couple of playgrounds and lots of picnic tables, some of them set off in private lakeside nooks. Nice.
There are a few short, wide, mostly smooth trails that connect the picnic table sites. You can make a loop if you follow these to the group site and then head up to the maintenance building and then back to the entry road.
Leashed dogs are allowed on the beach between Oct. and March 31.
Directions: The address of the park is 100 State Park Road, in Swanville.
