Riverwalk Trail

Riverwalk Trail is a half mile “trail” in a field between Oak Street and N. Mountain Ave.

Driving 

– From Ashland Plaza take Oak Street downhill about a mile, turn right on Sleepy Hollow Street (before Nevada) and you dead end into the trail. Unless you have a handicap tag on your car, you should really be walking this part.

Parking

– Still driving? Well, just pull to the side of the road in this little neighborhood. Another option is to start at the N. Mountain Park Nature Center. That does have plenty of parking and you can drive there without so much shame involved.

The Adventure

– It’s July 2020 and the city has begun “roughing in” some trails with signs and mowing and dirt. From the end of Sleepy Hollow Street you head downhill and can take a left which quickly dead ends into private property. A newly mowed path loops down along the river and then connects back to the main path. To the right, you head across a wide field next to Bear Creek. There is a vague trail you can easily follow but it’s by no means groomed. After a few hundred yards it approaches some back yards and there is an access path to the right, into that neighborhood, onto Briscoe Place.
However, if you follow the path to your left into the brush, you can emerge into the original Riverwalk Park area along Bear Creek. It’s as close to a “wardrobe-portal-into-Narnia” scenario that you’ll find in Ashland. And there’s more than one of those scenarios in town.
That path dead ends at the river to your left, and connects with N. Mountain Ave to the right. There is also a connection to Clinton Street through a little park right before N. Mountain Ave and it has some benches and a dirt path that still has the “new trail smell” on it.