1
Kettle Moraine State Forest - Southern Unit
Managed by Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
2,679 acres24.5 mi of trail
Ice Age TrailMoraine Ridge TrailGold LoopBlue LoopGreen Loop
Dog rules not recorded
Outdoors · Ottawa
Ottawa, WI parks, trails & bike paths
About 9.2% of Ottawa is conserved land, roughly 1,987 acres. There are about 37 miles of mapped trails, and the biggest networks are in Kettle Moraine State Forest - Southern Unit (24.5 mi), Paradise Valley Wildlife Area (3.4 mi), and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at Waukesha Field Station (2.8 mi).
Conserved land, trails, parks and bike routes in Ottawa, measured from OpenStreetMap and USGS data.
At a glance
Ottawa outdoors
Conserved land
9.2%
1,987 of 21,540 acres
Trails
37 mi
1.1 mi per sq mi · 6 on conserved land
Parks & preserves
6
545 conserved acres per 1,000 residents
Bike routes
4.9 mi
0.0 mi lanes · 4.9 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
Paradise Valley Wildlife Area
Managed by Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
1,419 acres3.4 mi of trail
Dog rules not recorded
3
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at Waukesha Field Station
Nature preserve
93 acres2.8 mi of trail
Dog rules not recorded
DirectionsTo the parking lot
4
Ottawa Lake Recreation Area
Managed by Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
747 acres1.1 mi of trail
Dog rules not recorded
DirectionsTo the parking lot
Who protects the land
1,987 conserved acres
Who manages it, from PAD-US. Approximate, because parcels can overlap.
Conserved doesn't always mean open to visitors. 442 acres are conservation easements, which are usually private land. 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 paths4.9 mi
- Shoulders & shared lanes0.0 mi
Courts & fields
- Baseball3
- Beach volleyball1
Counts include school and college facilities, which aren't always open to the public.
Nearby
Ottawa and its neighbors
Towns whose outdoors data has been built so far.
Trail talk
Conditions & tips from neighbors
No recent posts about Ottawa'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.