1
Sugar River Alder Forest Preserve
Managed by Forest Preserves of Winnebago County
550 acres6.2 mi of trail
Orange TrailBlue TrailRed Trail
Dog rules not recorded
Outdoors · Shirland
Shirland, IL parks, trails & bike paths
About 17% of Shirland is conserved land, roughly 2,119 acres. There are about 22 miles of mapped trails, and the biggest networks are in Sugar River Alder Forest Preserve (6.2 mi), Sugar River Forest Preserve (5.4 mi), and Colored Sands Forest Preserve (4.5 mi).
Conserved land, trails, parks and bike routes in Shirland, measured from OpenStreetMap and USGS data.
At a glance
Shirland outdoors
Conserved land
17%
2,119 of 12,264 acres
Trails
22 mi
1.1 mi per sq mi · 16 on conserved land
Parks & preserves
4
2,104 conserved acres per 1,000 residents
Bike routes
0.0 mi
0.0 mi lanes · 0.0 mi off-road paths
Conserved land is a share of the whole town area. Bike lanes are often missing from the map in smaller towns, so that number is likely low.
Map
Conserved land, trails & bike routes
Tap a number or a place below to zoom in© OpenStreetMap contributors · USGS PAD-US
Places to walk
Parks & preserves with trails
Ranked by mapped trail miles. Directions go to the nearest marked trailhead or public parking.
2
Sugar River Forest Preserve
Managed by Forest Preserves of Winnebago County
398 acres5.4 mi of trail
Green TrailOrange TrailBlue Trail
Dog rules not recorded
3
Colored Sands Forest Preserve
Managed by Forest Preserves of Winnebago County
287 acres4.5 mi of trail
Dog rules not recorded
4
Calvin and Sophia Ferguson Forest Preserve
Managed by Forest Preserves of Winnebago County
518 acres4.4 mi of trail
Dog rules not recorded
Who protects the land
2,119 conserved acres
Who manages it, from PAD-US. Approximate, because parcels can overlap.
Conserved doesn't always mean open to visitors. 613 acres are conservation easements, which are usually private land. Public access isn't recorded for 1 of 15 parcels. The places listed above are parks and preserves people visit.
Biking & sports
Bike routes, courts & fields
- Painted or protected bike lanes0.0 mi
- Off-road bike paths0.0 mi
- Shoulders & shared lanes0.0 mi
Courts & fields
- Tennis1
- Basketball1
Counts include school and college facilities, which aren't always open to the public.
Nearby
Shirland and its neighbors
Towns whose outdoors data has been built so far.
Trail talk
Conditions & tips from neighbors
No recent posts about Shirland's trails yet. Muddy, icy, a bridge out, where to park: a quick post helps the next person.
Sources: trails, parks, preserves, courts and bike lanes © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), map data as of 2026-09-28. Conserved land: USGS Gap Analysis Project, Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US). Measured against the Census town boundary.
How we measure
"Trails" are OpenStreetMap paths, bridleways, public tracks and unpaved footways, plus footways inside a park or preserve or on a named trail route. Sidewalks are left out. Areas are counted on a 20-meter grid, so overlapping parcels count once. "Conserved" includes conservation easements, which protect land from development but are usually private property. Trailheads are the nearest marked trailhead, public parking lot or information board within about 150 meters of a preserve. Dog rules come from OpenStreetMap when someone has tagged them; otherwise we show what's typical for the land manager, or say the rules aren't recorded.