In September of 2008, Jaimie Schilz decided to walk the entire loop over a period of a few months.  Below is her journal of the trip.

September 20, 2008

My husband and I visited the Glen Otto Community park. It was the smallest stretch of the 40-Mile Loop so we started with that one. It was 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning when we arrived at the park. It was a very quiet and peaceful trip through the park. There was a group fishing along the river and another group on the other side of the river doing some sort of work along the bank. Other than that, we did not see anyone else along the trail.

The trail starts out with hard packed sand but quickly softens up to a very loose sand. There were sections that were fairly rocky. The only trail markings were near the parking area pointing towards the beach. There are two main paths to take one of them goes straight through the park and the other goes down loops around and comes back. We chose to do the one that goes straight through because that seemed the most obvious candidate to be part of the 40-Mile Loop.

Since the trail lacked markings it was difficult to figure out where to go when we came to forks in the road. We ended up at the river which is actually out of the park area and then we walked back to the parking lot along the river.

Remarks About Conditions  It would be beneficial to anyone trying to complete the 40-Mile Loop if there was some indication of which paths in the different parks were considered part of the loop. I think it would also give some exposure to the Loop if it was marked on the maps at the trail heads.

• Trails:  Mainly flat except a steep decline from the parking lot

• Terrain: Varies from hard packed sand to very loose beach sand, some parts are rocky

• Trail Markings: none

• Bathrooms: Yes one at the main parking area the other deeper into the park

• Bathroom Quality: Fully stocked and clean

• Points of Interest: Sandy River

• Parking: Paved parking lot

View September 20th photos by clicking here.