Poplar Creek Trail Photos
Bode Lake

You can see a little of Bode Lake (to the left) off in the distance in the photo above. This is the part of the trail that goes around the southern end of Bode Lake.

The photo above show Bode Lake through the trees as you ride by on the Poplar Creek Trail. I know that the photo above is not going to win any awards for excellence in photography or anything (far from it) but I was trying to show how the trail goes close to the lake in this section.

I have been updating some of the captions on these bike trail photo pages after the fact (a few years later) and although I still remember most of the trails like it was just yesterday, the photos from my old cameras is pretty poor compared to the photos from my new camera. I am hoping to get updated photos of a lot of these trails but there are so many trails... and so little time...

There was a fisher and a family hangin out here by the lake (a nice thing to do on a beautiful summer day). Even though the photo above is also not all that great, I do like the way that the old willow tree frames the lake in the distance and the peacefulness of the scene above.

This is where the Poplar Creek Trail starts to head away from the Bode Lake area.

A short distance later the bike trail opens up into another open prairie scene again.

There are a number of benches along the path if you need to take a break. I know that this does not seem like much but it can be nice just to have a bench handy if you would like to take a break or even to have a snack or lunch on a longer ride.

I ride one of the other trails that is close to this one (the trail that goes around Paul Douglas forest preserve, which is just northeast of here (see the Paul Douglas Trail pages for more on that trail)) quite a bit, since it is easily accessible from where I live and there are no benches on the trail or in the forest preserve parking lot so I end up just leaning on my bike when I take a break on my ride.

Getting back to the trail again, you can see how you ride between shady wooded sections and open sunny sections on most of this trail.