Cowboy Trail in Nebraska

A while back, during a discussion of other bike trails across America, Nebraska’s Cowboy Trail came up. This partially-developed rail-trail will eventually be over 300 miles long. At this point, there are very few online resources for the Cowboy Trail, so I created BikeCowboyTrail.com, which uses a design very similar to BikeKatyTrail.com. If you are thinking of riding the Cowboy Trail, or if you’d just like to find out more about it, take a look at BikeCowboyTrail.com

Happy trails!

Thanks a lot, Ray. I have been planning a trip for about a year and this will be a great help. There is a book called Nebraska's Cowboy Trail by Kieth Terry that is of some merit. He is a Professor at the University of Nebraska - Kearney. You might want to get into contact with him for more information.

FYI, according to Wilkipedia, the Cowboy Trail is now complete from Norfolk to Valentine. This was done in the Summer of 2009. So, there is no undeveloped section just east of Valentine anymore as indicated on the Cowboy Trail map at BikeCowboyTrail.com.

Thanks for the feedback! Yes, I have the book by Prof Terry and would highly recommend it for anyone planning a trip. Available through Amazon and other book websites. It gives a lot of interesting historical background.

SteveK, thanks for pointing out that error regarding the most recently developed part of the trail. I have updated the map and the website text relating to to Ainsworth-Arabia section of the trail.

Nice job, Ray! This trail has been on my list of rides to do and you have now made it easy for me. Two questions: Are you going to put up a comment forum, and any idea when (or if) they intend to extend the trail to Chadron?

Thanks Jules! Yes, I`ll definitely add a comment forum, hopefully within the next few weeks. Until then, it is possible to leave comments for specific towns and businesses (near the bottom of their respective pages), but I just haven`t yet built the centralized forum to pull all the comments together.



They do plan to eventually extend the trail to Chadron - key word being "eventually". I asked the guy at Nebraska Game & Parks Dept who manages the trail about this. As you might suspect, it all comes down to money. and actually, the cost of building the trail is not much, he says it`s the cost of maintenance that they can`t afford. The state legislature would need to approve more funds on an ongoing basis to support maintemance of new segments, before those segmants can be added. So I doubt that we`ll see anything until the recession is well behind us and the state budget has plenty of cash.



The rail bed is there from Valentine to Chadron, of course, but it`s just not yet converted to trail. I am not sure whether the rails and ties are still there, or if it`s just the large gravel that they use for railroads. But apparently it is possible to hike or ride horses on that section, and maybe even mountain bike if you`re up for a rough ride. But, as the Nebraska guys stressed, that section is not officially open or developed, so any activity on the undeveloped section would be at your own risk.


Have fun, and we hope to hear how it turns out for you.

Thanks so much for all of your effort! We're doing the Katy trail this June and will do the Cowboy trail in 2011!!

Sounds like a great trail! And a great job on the webpage. Wouldn't it
be great if ALL trails used the same format/setup? (Wishful thinking!)