This trail was designed with mountain bikes in mind, and that becomes immediately apparent as you swoop up, down and around the little coves off the lake. The 11.5 mile Lake Shore Trail winds around Council Bluff Lake, through a few pine and cedar groves, but never strays very far from the shore. Most of the mileage is right next to the water. While there is only modest elevation gain, the constant ups, downs and turns never seem to end. There are many miles of technical trail riding, but nothing too intimidating. The trail is almost entirely singletrack with the exception of an old road bed about a mile long just before the Enough boat ramp, and a gravel road section just northeast of the swim beach.
There is also a connector along the Telleck Branch which allows you to connect with 2 major sections of the Ozark Trail: Trace Creek, and Middle Fork. From there you can get in some serious singletrack riding. 25 miles to the Highway J trailhead on the Middle Fork; 16 miles from the Telleck Connector to Hazel Creek Campground by going north on the Trace Creek section, or 8 miles south to the Highway A Trailhead. The Ozark Trail Association has just completed a reroute of the connector (Sep. 2006), which puts it up on the hillside and bypasses the flooding caused by the beaver dam. It’s a great improvement over the previous trail and now the route from the campground is wide open.
