Colleges with the Best Trail Running Oppurtunities

Idaho State has to be mentioned here. Surprised by Pocatello's trails. Google is telling me there's something like 1000 miles of trails around the area. There wasnt bunches of flat stuff in town but the hills around town were fantastic.

My perspective as an old guy who has been around the block a few times, having lived in the southeast, west coast, MT, WY and CO:

A few people have mentioned it already, but my vote goes for Humboldt State in Arcata, CA - trails and logging roads everywhere. I spent a year in Arcata and have to say that the trails there were the best. The weather was great too - not too hot, not too cold. Rain and wet, muddy trails can be an issue, along with the occasional banana slug. ;-)

I visited Brevard and it would come in 2nd place - hot/humid during the summer when compared to the mild weather in Humboldt County.

I have lived in and around CU/Boulder since the 1990s and agree with the comments about Boulder - overrated with regards to trail running. Boulder trails are rough, rocky and icy during the winter - the few remaining unpaved roads around are wind scoured hardpan in the winter. During the summer, the foothills trails are crawling with people.

Jesus guys Berry College? Great trails I'm sure but such a sh*tty school and team.

Colby College has amazing trails, as does Middlebury from what I hear.

Carleton I will second, and umass amherst is amazing.

Ran on trails at the following when my kids visited these, several mentioned already but I must chime-in:

UNC-Asheville. Warren Wilson close-by, too.

Middlebury

Oakland (Michigan)

Cornell / Ithaca College - see Fingerlakes Running Club website for maps, races, etc. I think SUNY Cortland is nearby, too.

Moraine Valley CC (IL)

I heard about Western Washington U and want to check that out.

Angry Willy wrote:

A few people have mentioned it already, but my vote goes for Humboldt State in Arcata, CA - trails and logging roads everywhere. I spent a year in Arcata and have to say that the trails there were the best. The weather was great too - not too hot, not too cold. Rain and wet, muddy trails can be an issue, along with the occasional banana slug. ;-)

+1

Humboldt area is beautiful. UC Santa Cruz, Santa Clara University, and Stanford are all great for trail running as well. You won't get better running weather anywhere in the world either.

NAU

UVA (univ of Virginia)

CU Boulder

Colorado College

My two cents...

Flagstaff (NAU) has trailheads everywhere and it's a small town surrounded by public land (mostly USFS)... Veg is open: forest and sage steppe with lots of flat and lots of hills, so there's a wide variety of terrain to run over. Lots of dirt forest roads, too. Having lived in Oregon (where there's lots of dirt but also the scenery is taken down a lot of notches by the logging impact) and Colorado Springs (where access depends on where you live, and you might have a lot of road to run on to get to the trails, which are mostly steeeeeeep), I'll say that Flagstaff has an excellent assortment of over 100 miles of single track at high elevation and the town supports an awesome running community. The main drawback of Flagstaff is that winters are a bit cold (although Flagstaff is one of the sunniest places in the country) and trails can become hard-packed and uneven over the course of the winter, during which time the dirt roads also become frozen as hard as the roads... The other drawback is the size of the school, which is a mid-sized state school and may not have the program you are interested in.

Having spent time in Birmingham, I agree that there are no "dirt" trails near the two campuses. However, if you are OK with running on pavement and concrete, I think that Homewood/Mtn. Brook/Vestavia are hidden gems when it comes to training routes.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Lakeshore trail across the street from Samford, either. It is a flat, fast out-and-back route which gives you a quick and easy 5 miles and, as you mentioned, you can easily tack on to either end with runs through streets and other trails.

Berry college in Rome Ga.

Berry College, as several others have said. Endless miles of trails, solitude, deer, hills, flat, cinder track. People don't know what they are missing here in Rome.

To counter the guy that said, "You might as well have asked what school you graduated from," I currently go to UC Santa Barbara, and I'm an aspiring ultramarathon runner. While the mountains behind have a lot of awesome trails, you can't get to any of them unless you have a freaking car. You're stuck with flat bluffs along the ocean that aren't very long. I thought the trails would be way better than they actually are.

I do have a friend at UCSC, and it sounds to me like that is trail heaven, although he hated the school...

Damn how tf can anyone talk about schools with the best trails and leave out Dartmouth. Even Andrew Wheating who has trained all over the country said that his favorite run is the Dartmouth staple Sound of Music which is a run that goes over the river into his home town of Norwich VT.

Check your facts before you start naming schools before Dartmouth.

NOPants wrote:

NYU

Why do you feel you need to be an "A-hole"?

srjnsfgmhm wrote:

Jesus guys Berry College? Great trails I'm sure but such a sh*tty school and team.

Colby College has amazing trails, as does Middlebury from what I hear.

Carleton I will second, and umass amherst is amazing.

Berry College is the most beautiful campus in the US. I grew up in a house just off the woods and played in those woods as a kid and ran those trails as I got older.

Let's toss in Colorado College and UCCS if you are just looking for trails.

Of course the person who started this thread in 2011 should have graduated by now.

What is CU?

Colorado University

Clemson

California

Central

Centralia

Connecticut

Chicago???

University of South Carolina?

University of Southern California?

University of Southern?