National Recreation Trails Database

This website provides access to the National Recreation Trail (NRT) database, a collection of information on the various trails which have been designated as NRT's. These trails are located throughout the United States and U.S. territories. The amount of information may vary from trail to trail. If you need more information than is available on this site, please use the contact(s) listed for that trail. (If no contacts, are listed, you may request help from American Trails at trailhead@americantrails.org)

Instructions and Examples for Finding National Recreation Trails

Basic Search:

Click on this icon to search the National Recreational Trails Database. You will be presented with a simple form to search by trail name, State, or activity. Enter information in one of the three search fields and click Find Trails!

For example, to search for mountain biking trails in Colorado fill the form out as pictured below:

Sample Search

Advanced Search:

The advanced search form allows you to provide more criteria in your search for trails. Fill out one or more of the search fields and click the Find Trails! button.

You may select up to two trail uses to search from. Optionally, you may sort the results by selecting a database field in "sort results by" selector.

Below is an example of searching for all mountain biking trails in Colorado that are at least 20 miles in length.

Sample Advanced Search

Search Tips:

The most common problem when searching any database is setting too specific criteria. it is more effective to search for a broader scope of trails first, and then search for more specific records as needed.

Browsing / Results

Clicking the browse button loads the trail listing page. This is the same page that displays the results of any search you make.

To sort the results, click on the column headers. For example, to sort the results length, click the Len (mi) heading. The results will sort from shortest to longest, as seen below:

Sample Results

To view the details of a trail, click the trail's name in the first column. This will load a "print-friendly" page containing the detailed record in the database for that trail.

Featured National Recreation Trails

Trails that have feature articles posted on the American Trails website also have the Featured NRT icon displayed, as shown below:

Sample Featured NRT

Clicking on the Featured NRT icon will load the associated article for the current trail. To see a complete listing of the featured National Recreation Trails, visit the American Trails website.

Warning:
Some of the data in this database may be outdated or incomplete.

American Trails is working to update the data. In the meantime, please contact the trail management agency for current information.

Do you see a problem with this trail data? Contact either the trail manager (listed above) or email trailhead@americantrails.org.