Bear Creek Greenway Bike Path

The Bear Creek Greenway is a 20 mile paved bike path that connects Ashland to Central Point along Bear Creek.

Driving

– It’s a bike path, don’t drive here, ride your bike for cripsake. There are so many access point to this bike path, but from Ashland Plaza, ride down Oak Street for a mile, and turn left on Nevada. Boom. Trail starts right there to your right.

Parking

– There are 7 official parks the bike path goes through and there is parking in all of them.  There are many other entry points so check the map. The official map is way better than mine. Click over to it HERE!

The Adventure

-This can be used by so many people for so many different reasons we are just going to pick… biking end to end.  Starting at the Ashland dog park you follow Bear Creek pretty closely for 5 miles to the Talent park – Lynn Newbry.  3 more miles from there you reach the Phoenix park – Blue Heron.  This has more facilities – a playground, pavilion, big grassy field, volleyball. 2 1/2 miles further – US Cellular Park and Coyote Trails Nature School.  This has very well developed ball fields and all the facilities.  This can be super crowded which is fun if you’re coming to watch a game, or terrible if you hate people.

2 more miles from US Cellular Park and you are at Medford’s Bear Creek Park.  There’s a giant new playground, but the creek begins to get trashy, and some homeless are fond of this area. The good news? Dairy Queen has it’s own bridge across the creek. Okay, sketchiest park yet, 1 mile further into mid Medford, the sketchiest park yet – Hawthorne Park. The smell of urine is a good sign to keep moving.  1 mile more and the trail crosses under busy Crater Lake Road and hits an actual intersection going up too the road, or over to Railroad Park.  Yes, it has old trains for kids to play on, but, it has seen better days.

Going forward instead is the Central Point section. 5 miles mostly along the freeway except for a nice jog to the north that hits the trailhead at Pine Street. You then pass by the Putt Putt gold center, Jackson County Expo, and RV park.  You cross Upton Road and end at the Dean Creek Trailhead which is just a parking circle. After that, what looks like a nice paved road on Google maps is rocky and terrible. Keep your road biking expectations low and just head back the way you came.