Buy a large plot of land for trail running

Look into tax laws surrounding easement/land trust, it might help your wallet each April. The flip side is you may have to open it to public use, so also check state liability laws.

Boulder bro

Search Strava for Big's Backyard and take a look at the set up in Laz's backyard. He gets a 4+ mile loop in there, though no idea how many acres he has. Maggie Guterl, Harvey Lewis, Guillaume Calmettes, Amelia Boone and others have all uploaded their GPS - could give you some ideas.

I agree with others though - could get really, REALLY boring after awhile.

I grew up next to timber land that had gravel roads for 20 miles north and south and 10 miles east west. When back home could run 100s of miles of looping timber roads.

Yes people have done this. I know some guys that bought 150 acres and are putting in mountain biking trails & jumps.

My house is across the street from 8000 acres of open space/national monument so no need. But this is definitely the dream!

runtime wrote:

I have 136 mostly forested acres near Ithaca NY. It has trails already, but I plan to cut more. The perimeter is roughly 2 miles. There's about 200' of elevation change, a stream, large meadows, etc.

I mostly walk those trails, (ah, old age) but it's very satisfying.

How much roughly does that much land cost?

Truffle Shuffle wrote:

Search Strava for Big's Backyard and take a look at the set up in Laz's backyard. He gets a 4+ mile loop in there, though no idea how many acres he has. Maggie Guterl, Harvey Lewis, Guillaume Calmettes, Amelia Boone and others have all uploaded their GPS - could give you some ideas.

A 4,167 miles loop is the thing to aim for, then you can host some Backyard Ultras on it for a nice little side income to your retirement money (or for just building a local group friendship in your new living area).

As for on the perimeter - just NO - you'll be bored within weeks.

I've seen a 5 mile long newbie MTB trail that never crossed itself built within a 500 x 1500 meters wooden area that made for really fun running too - only 10 meters between highest and lowest point but the build was so good that it felt like much more. That's the way to go - check a good topographic map before you buy and you might be able to spade out something amazing from the woods.

Ya'll are talking about the price of land. Cutting 1-2miles of trail yourself without equipment will be a bear. Maintenance throughout the year will be necessary.

Backpack blower, rake, chainsaw, loppers. You can skip the blower, but it makes life nicer.

-Watch for wet spots. Spring and late fall you will know where the swampy low-lying sections are. Obviously you want to avoid those.

-On hills, for sustainability/durability you are better off cutting across the hill instead of straight up. Straight up you are basically making a creek bed, rain will erode it to roots and rocks.

-If it's a forested area, it'll grow back in pretty quick throughout the summer without a lot of traffic. Going to have to trim the ferns and brush back.

-Know your property lines. Get some survey tape and mark trees.

-Use a different color tape to mark your new trail. Just go hike randomly in the woods and get an idea what it all looks like before you start. Then walk it again with some idea how the trail will flow.

It's a labor of love building trails. It's work. But you can make some features that include neat terrain. Under/around downed large trees, rock bridges and patchwork. It's a little like artwork sitting back and visualizing. Anyone can build a trail, but good trails are hard to come by.

I have a trail around my property. Nothing impressive just a 1/4 mile loop for me and the dog. My recommendation is to have a tractor with a backblade or boxblade. I used a backblade to make mine. I picked where I wanted it to go, cut down the smaller trees that were in the way and used the backblade to cut the final trail. I have a weed wacker for keeping vegetation back and periodically need to chainsaw things that fall across the trail. My dog loves it as most of it is back in the wooded area of the property. Between her and I I don't need to mow it as all the vegetation gets trampled.

As far as boredom, I am immune to it. I can run the loops for miles and it doesn't bother me. I did a 10 mile run on it before, usually its 3-5 though. It worked great for me as I have young children and going out to run isn't always easy.

rojo wrote:

runtime wrote:

I have 136 mostly forested acres near Ithaca NY. It has trails already, but I plan to cut more. The perimeter is roughly 2 miles. There's about 200' of elevation change, a stream, large meadows, etc.

I mostly walk those trails, (ah, old age) but it's very satisfying.

How much roughly does that much land cost?

e.g. zillow.com -> search "Ithaca, NY" with option "Land & Lots For Sale"

About $2k / acre and (way, way) up depending on location. There's a lot of good trail running on state forest land and an active trail race scene within a 25 mile radius of Ithaca.

Search "berm peak" on YouTube for some good trial building. It's a MTB channel, but you get a sense of what may be required.

So interestingly my parents neighbor just did this with his property which is a little over 5 acres and if I had to guess it is a rectangle that's roughly 400 x 600 feet.

The neighbor chopped down a fair amount of trees to create paths through his property including one along the perimeter and then used a bobcat to level it and added some dirt to provide some ramping for the stepper parts (there is a small ravine / pit on the property that is probably 40 feet from top to low point and was created when they built the state highway about 100 years ago and needed fill and the low and high points of the property are probably 60 feet in elevation differential.

The neighbors primary goal was to have cross-country ski trails but I walked them last month and they would make an excellent XC running option. The longest trail is about a half mile so shorter than what you are looking for but I think the neighbor spent a few weekends a month for the summer and fall working on it. What's interesting is my friends and I had actually cut some sledding trails about 30 years ago on the same property when it was owned by a different neighbor.

10 acres would give you a little less than a mile for a perimeter trail but would be wide enough to have a much longer trail that meanders. Building the trail isn't too bad especially if you have your own machine but you can rent a bobcat or even a small excavator and probably make good progress in a week depending on how thick and mature the trees are.

Where do you live? Obviously the more land the higher the property cost but if you really wanted a nice trail system 20 acres would easily support 3+ miles of trails and I would focus on a perimeter trail, diagonal across the longest part of property and then a bisecting trail to make it easy for loops and to switch things up. If you following the natural landscape i.e. take out as few trees as possible you may end up with a prettier trail that is longer than just trying to make a straight trail along the property lines.

My wife and I bought 160 acres (64 hectares), it is a square, 800m on each side. One side is fairly open and after marking out some nice loops that follow the topography, and then riding it on mountain bike for 2 months or so, no need for more trail work. The other side is much more forested and progress is slower on building trails. We live near a lot of national forest trails but they get busy on weekends, so I almost always run on our property on weekends.

We have a nice meadow that is not flat but pretty flat. I plan to measure out a semi-oval 400m track there this summer.

Maybe you should check out the Track in the Forest that was the site of the 1968 Olympic Trials.

XC skiing, mountain biking and running share lots of things but bikes can't go up as steep of hills as I like for running.

That's not a question I want to answer on a public site.

Citizen Runner is about right for unimproved land. My place came with a house.

Every municipality has a database of every sale and taxes paid. It even has your name listed. You sound silly not to provide a rough amount for the area.

My name is Runtime? Who knew?

Of course that information is publically available. No surprise there.

In any case, I don't know the value of the land proper. As I said, I bought land plus house. And I further said that the other person's estimate for land only seemed about right.

Plus I have to say -- after years on this site -- I don't take Rojo's questions or statements at face value.

runtime wrote:

My name is Runtime? Who knew?

Of course that information is publically available. No surprise there.

In any case, I don't know the value of the land proper. As I said, I bought land plus house. And I further said that the other person's estimate for land only seemed about right.

Plus I have to say -- after years on this site -- I don't take Rojo's questions or statements at face value.

No one takes Rojo at face value. He’s more like our court jester who unfortunately has ownership of the court.