A Guide to Lake Forest Walking Trails and Nature Preserves

Two Lake Forest residents can say the exact same sentence, "I walked the dog at the preserve today," and mean two legally different things. One of them followed the rules for where they were. The other, without realizing it, may not have.

This isn't a knock on anyone's attention span. It's a structural fact about how the town's open space actually works. Lake Forest doesn't have one preserve system with one set of rules. It has at least three, run by three different organizations, sitting close enough together that a single walk can cross all of them without a fence in sight.

Ten Preserves, Two Governments, and No Shared Rulebook

Most of the trail acreage inside Lake Forest belongs to Lake Forest Open Lands, an independent land trust that has operated here since 1967. LFOLA maintains ten preserves totaling more than 900 acres and over 20 miles of walking trails, stretching from the Lake Forest shoreline north toward Lake Bluff and west toward the savannas near Lincolnshire.

But not every green space a Lake Forest resident thinks of as "the preserve" belongs to LFOLA. Middlefork Savanna Forest Preserve, one of the largest and most ecologically significant tracts in the area, is managed by Lake County Forest Preserves, a county agency with its own trail rules and its own gravel-versus-grass distinctions. And Elawa Farm, the 16-acre former Armour family estate with its garden market and walking paths, has belonged to the City of Lake Forest since 1998.

The result is a patchwork that looks continuous on foot but isn't continuous on paper. That distinction matters most when it comes to the one activity almost every resident cares about: bringing the dog.

Why Mellody Farm and Its Neighbor Disagree About Dogs

Mellody Farm Nature Preserve sits at LFOLA's Conservation Campus on North Waukegan Road, on land that was once part of the Armour family's estate. It has a restored Italian Renaissance gatehouse, now the Lockhart Family Nature Center, and a pond designed by landscape architect Jens Jensen. It also has a flat rule with no exceptions: no dog walking allowed, regardless of membership status.

Walk about half a mile along the mowed prairie path, and you cross into Middlefork Savanna Forest Preserve, the county-run tract next door. Here, leashed dogs are welcome, but only on the roughly four to five and a half miles of gravel trail. The half-mile mowed grass path through the preserve's rarest tallgrass savanna is off limits to dogs entirely.

So within the space of a single connected walk, a Lake Forest resident passes from a preserve that bans dogs outright, into one that allows them on some surfaces and not others, all without crossing a road or seeing a sign that explains why. The "why" comes down to ownership. Mellody Farm's rule is LFOLA's own policy for that specific site. Middlefork Savanna's gravel-only rule comes from Lake County Forest Preserves, a different agency entirely, protecting a 25-acre remnant considered one of the highest-quality tallgrass savannas remaining in the country.

Across the rest of the LFOLA system, dog walking is available, but it isn't automatic. LFOLA requires anyone walking a dog on its preserves to hold a membership with dog-walking privileges and to display a current parking decal. Walking the trails without a dog doesn't require membership. Walking with one does.

Here's how the rules actually break down across a handful of the preserves that make up the daily circuit:

The Greene Nature Preserve deserves its own mention. It's the one site on the list where the restriction isn't about dogs at all. Car access is limited to LFOLA members and Lake Forest residents holding a parking sticker, and that sticker doesn't expire as long as membership or residency continues. It's a small detail, but it's the kind of thing that turns a first-time visit into a wasted trip if nobody mentions it beforehand.

What Changed on the Circuit This Year

The network isn't static. LFOLA closed West Skokie Nature Preserve, a 31.5-acre site off Westleigh Road, on August 4, 2025 to begin a trail restoration project, with a stated goal of finishing by the end of 2025 or early 2026. The organization is using the same contractors who completed the new accessible amenities at Carruthers Family Nature Preserve in 2024, LFOLA's newest addition to the system, which was built with accessible boardwalks designed by Hey and Associates. That target window has already come and gone as of this writing, and LFOLA has not posted a confirmed reopening date, so anyone planning a visit there should check LFOLA's preserve pages before heading out.

The organization's institutional footing has also grown more formal. LFOLA recently earned its third accreditation renewal from the Land Trust Accreditation Commission, extending its term to seven years and marking the first time an Illinois land trust has reached that milestone. It's not the kind of fact that changes a Saturday walk, but it says something about why the rules across these ten sites are as specific and consistently enforced as they are. A team of full-time land restoration ecologists manages the preserves, not volunteers working from a shared assumption of what "a preserve" should look like.

The One Preserve That Predates Everyone Managing It

Skokie River Nature Preserve is LFOLA's oldest and largest holding, assembled mostly through early land donations and essentially complete by the mid-1980s. Long before it carried that name, the area was known locally as Shaw's Woods and Prairie, after the family that owned and preserved it. In 1992, the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission dedicated the Skokie River tract as an Illinois Nature Preserve, the highest level of land protection the state offers and the first designation of its kind in the Lake Forest and Lake Bluff area.

The preserve's swinging bridge, a longtime fixture of the trail system, was restored and reopened in December 2008. In the summer of 2009, hikers rediscovered a colony of white lady's-slipper orchids growing along one of the interior paths, a threatened species in Illinois that depends on undisturbed wet prairie. It's the kind of detail that explains why the Illinois Department of Natural Resources classifies the site's core acreage as permanently protected under state law rather than simply zoned for open space. Unlike the other nine LFOLA preserves, walking here connects you to a piece of ground that outlasted every organization that has managed it.

Before You Head Out

A few things worth knowing before you lace up:

• LFOLA membership is required for dog walking anywhere in the system, and it comes with a parking decal you'll need to display.
• Mellody Farm bans dogs outright. No membership status changes that.
• Middlefork Savanna, run by Lake County rather than LFOLA, keeps leashed dogs on gravel trails only. The mowed grass path through the highest-quality savanna section is foot traffic only.
• The Jean and John Greene Nature Preserve limits vehicle access to LFOLA members and Lake Forest residents with a parking sticker.
• Elawa Farm's lot on Middlefork Drive doubles as a trailhead for Middlefork Farm Nature Preserve's George Beach Trail, so parking there serves two different destinations.
• West Skokie Nature Preserve has been closed for restoration since August 2025. Confirm current status before planning a visit.

A Note from LFC Partners

None of this is the kind of detail that shows up on a listing sheet, and that's exactly the point. Understanding how a town actually works, preserve by preserve, rule by rule, is the same instinct that goes into pricing a home accurately or explaining why one street commands a different value than the one next to it. If you're thinking about your next move in Lake Forest or Lake Bluff and want that kind of grounded, specific read on the market, Ann Lyon and the team at LFC Partners would welcome the conversation. Request a complimentary home valuation and private consultation whenever you're ready.