Potato Creek State Park

The county frame; the state's park on county ground

The state's park: The county's largest hiking system belongs to the state. Potato Creek State Park, at North Liberty in the county's south — a state park on St. Joseph County ground, printed at the county frame — publishes its trails in the DNR's own table, and the table is printed whole: Trail 1, 2.2 miles, moderate, skirting Worster Lake through old fields and maple and oak-hickory forest; Trail 2, 2.0 miles, rugged, to the park's highest point; Trail 3, 1.0 mile, moderate, along the ridge over the lake through beech-maple woods, a spring wildflower trail; Trail 4, 2.5 miles, moderate, along the stream past the lake and old farm sites; Trail 5, 1.0 mile, easy, through old fields; Trail 6, 0.5 of a mile, an easy loop past wetland and woods; the Friends Wetland Trail, 0.75 of a mile, easy, past wetlands and observation decks; and the Peppermint Loop Trail, 0.9 of a mile, easy, following old Peppermint Road along the lake — nine trails, ten and eighty-five hundredths miles by the department's own figures added together. Bicycles are prohibited on the hiking trails; the park's riding is on its own ground — a 3.3-mile paved bicycle trail and the 7.4-mile mountain bike trail developed with NIMBA, told in the bike pass. The DNR's park brochure is current — its present edition is dated May 2026 — and the mountain bike trail's length stands in it at 7.5 miles against the park page's 7.4, a tenth of a mile of disagreement inside the department's own publications, printed as found.

Sources:

1. Indiana DNR, Potato Creek State Park page (each hiking trail's length, difficulty, and course as quoted; the paved bicycle trail; the mountain bike trail and its NIMBA partnership; bicycles prohibited on hiking trails).
2. Indiana DNR, Potato Creek State Park brochure, edition of May 2026 (the trail table; the mountain bike trail at 7.5 miles — printed as a conflict with the park page's 7.4).