Blue Hill Trail

Dogs Leashed

Features Birding · Fall Colors · Wildflowers · Wildlife

There are two vault toilets and a paved parking lot (with room for 12-15 vehicles) at the trailhead. The nearest town is Elk River, about 22 miles to the south.

The Blue Hill Trail has three loops, totaling 5 miles, that take you past Buck Lake and through various forest and prairie habitats and past Buck Lake. A spur trail will take you to a viewing platform atop Blue Hill, the highest point in Sherburne County. The route described here takes around the outside of all three loops.

From the parking lot, go 0.1 mi north to a 3-way trail junction (there are maps at each major junction). Continue north on the wide middle trail and curve left (west) beneath Blue Hill and then go northeast through an oak and conifer forests.

At 1.1 mi from the trailhead, you leave the forest and continue east - over a bridge spanning County Ditch #3 - past Buck Lake. The lake itself is inaccessible but there is a viewing platform here from which you can see waterfowl in season.

Past Buck Lake, the trail turns north, passes one, than another, loop option junction before turning south and then east to its easternmost point - about 3 mi from the trailhead.

From there, the trail weaves its way southwest through prairie and oak savanna, and across a bridge over County Ditch #3, to the 3-way junction below Blue Hill and then on back to the trailhead.