Back to Twin Cities Touring
Vegetation at Lebanon Hills Regional Park campground in Apple Valley, Minnesota. Photo by Tony Webster. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lebanon_Hills_Regional_Park_Campground_-_Apple_Valley,_Minnesota_(36180155210).jpg
Overview
A favorite! It’s a short enough ride to do in a half a day, and it’s a pretty large, hilly park, so it feels relatively remote.
Bike Ride
It only took me 1.5 hours to ride home going something like 12 miles per hour. So close. As long as it’s not rush hour, the ride is decent. The roads in Eagan tend to have two lanes, and there’s enough room if there is little traffic.
Camping
The campgrounds are nice and secluded, and the hiking trails are extensive and the park is ridiculously big for being so close to the city.
Why I would go again
- This is my go-to place if going with friends who can’t ride very far.
Why I would not go again
- There are some nicer bike rides to other parks.
Story from Kari Rudd:
For the Lebanon Hills trip I had a better road bike, and I remember it was really fun to ride there through the trails in Minneapolis, over the Cedar bridge and through the wooded areas in Dakota County that I spent time hiking in when I was in high school. It felt like we had traveled quite far but I was so close to the house I grew up in! I remember that we went for a hike from the campsite, and we were trying to go to a lake and ended up walking really far. I was wearing these chaco sandles and my feet were really sore the next day. I could hardly walk but I could bike just fine, which was good because we had to bike home.
