Poplar Creek Trail Photos
Shoe Factory Road Woods

As I continued my Poplar Creek Trail ride heading west I came to this very small picnic area just before crossing route 59 (Sutton Road) and Shoe Factory Road.

The picnic area (like the forest preserve and the trail) is also part of the Cook County Forest Preserve. I believe that this particular picnic area is called the Great Egret Picnic Area.

This is still on the northern end of Poplar Creek park after crossing route 59 (Sutton Road) and Shoe Factory Road. The trail goes south between Route 59 and Shoe Factory Road Woods at this point.

Here's Shoe Factory Road Woods on the western side of Poplar Creek. There are some unpaved trails in this part of the forest preserve but I did not have a chance to ride and explore these on this ride.

Here's a photo of one of the map signs at Shoe Factory Woods. This is the same map that is posted on the Cook County forest preserve site (although this is a photo of the actual sign at the park).

This is the road that goes into the forest preserve parking at Shoe Factory Road Woods. From the map it looks like there is a nice loop around the woods so I hope to get out here soon to see what this part of the trail is like. Actually I hope that it is more of a trail than the grass path that I attempted to go on in the photo at the bottom of this page.

The photo above is still on the main Poplar Creek Trail just before crossing Routes 58 (Golf Road) and 59 (Sutton Road) where I decided to check out the non-paved paths.

Here is one of the "non-paved" paths that I attempted to ride on. I assume that this is the "orange trail". Usually when I see maps and signs for "unpaved trails" I assume that they are referring to crushed stone trails or at worst dirt paths. I was really surprised to see that this was nothing more than a mowed grass path.