Saturday morning, early September, and the gravel lot off Rum River Blvd NW is already half full by nine. Dog walkers head north toward the campsite loop. A woman with a jogging stroller cuts south, toward the part of the park that stays paved. Nobody seems to be going both directions. That's not an accident. Rum River North County Park reads on a map like a single green blob across from the high school, but it behaves like three separate parks stitched together, and most of the people who live within walking distance have only ever explored the piece nearest their own driveway.
That's worth untangling, because the piece you haven't walked is usually the better one for what you're trying to do that day.
The Park Has Three Names, and They're One Trail
Start at the south parking lot, where the boat launch sits, and you're on the entirely paved stretch. This is the segment that begins at the southern end of Rum River North County Park and runs straight through the middle of Dellwood River Park before tying into neighborhood sidewalks and commuter paths on the far side. It stays close to the water the whole way. This is the loop for a stroller, a road bike, or anyone who wants river views without watching their footing.
Walk north instead, past the second parking area, and the surface changes. The trail here climbs a low hill, threads past picnic tables, and eventually reaches the canoe campsites at the park's northern edge, where the Canoe Camp Loop circles the put-in area on packed dirt. Combine the two halves and you get a rough figure-eight, a little over two miles by most walkers' count, with about 120 feet of elevation gain, which is more relief than the flat river bottom suggests until you're actually on the hill.
A few blocks south, separated from the main park by a stretch of residential streets, sits Hidden Ponds Park. It's easy to think of as unrelated. It isn't. Its loop trail circles a ballfield and multi-use field, and it feeds directly into the same network of neighborhood sidewalks that the paved river trail dumps you onto. Walk the full chain, north loop to south loop to Hidden Ponds, and you've covered most of what Saint Francis actually offers on foot without getting in a car once.
Here's what that combination looks like broken down by surface, since it changes what you'd want to bring:
- Paved river loop (south lot to Dellwood River Park): stroller and bike friendly, stays along the water, connects onward to sidewalks
- North figure-eight (Rum River North County Park Loop): half paved, half natural, roughly 2.5 miles, about 120 feet of climbing
- Canoe Camp Loop: natural surface only, follows the river's north bank to the campsites
- Hidden Ponds Park loop: short, paved-adjacent, circles the ballfield and playground
Where the Pavement Actually Ends
The natural-surface half is genuinely different terrain, and it's worth knowing before you head out with the wrong shoes. Reviewers describe the unpaved sections, especially up by the canoe campsites, as prone to mud after rain, since the ground stays soft longer than the paved half dries out. Early fall, after the season's first heavy rains, is exactly when that shows up.
There's a sound difference too. The park sits close enough to Saint Francis High School that afternoon dismissal traffic is audible from parts of the north loop, particularly if you're out around 3 p.m. on a school day. Homes line the west bank of the river and the park's northern edge, which is part of why the trail feels tucked into town rather than removed from it. That's simply the texture of a park built into a residential grid instead of carved out of empty land, and it explains why an early morning or a weekend walk feels different from a Tuesday-afternoon one.
The Fall List Gets Longer
September is when the trail conversation in Saint Francis usually expands past the river park anyway. Local hikers point to a handful of spots that come into their own once the leaves start turning: Martin's Meadows Nature Preserve, Wayside Prairie Park Path, Cedar Creek Conservation Area Trail, and Lake George Regional Park Loop all show up on seasonal favorites lists alongside Rum River North. One more worth noting, a short drive over in neighboring Bethel: the Bethel Haunted Forest Trail, which straddles the same fall hiking rotation that a lot of Saint Francis residents already use without necessarily thinking of it as a Bethel destination rather than a local one.
That blurring of town lines isn't just a hiking habit. It happened officially this year, too. On January 1, 2026, the Rum River Fire District went into service, replacing the separate St. Francis Fire Department and Bethel Fire Department with a single combined force of more than 25 firefighters operating under a joint powers agreement the two cities signed in 2025. The old dividing line between the two departments' response areas is gone. It's a small piece of civic housekeeping, but it matches something residents on both sides of that line have understood for a while: Saint Francis and Bethel aren't really two separate places when you're the one walking, driving, or paddling between them.
After the Loop: Bridge Street
The trail chain empties out, eventually, onto Bridge Street, and that's where the second half of a Saint Francis Saturday tends to happen. Coffeesmith operates out of a genuinely old building, a converted historical mansion that gives the shop a different feel from the strip-mall coffee options along the highway. A few blocks over, Bridge Street Coffee runs as a hybrid coffee shop, deli, and consignment shop, the kind of combination that only makes sense in a small town where one storefront has to do several jobs at once.
For food afterward, the options residents mention most are Mansetti's Pizza & Pasta, a longstanding local favorite for a reason, and Chester's Small Town Tavern & Eatery, which leans into exactly what the name promises. Mulligans draws a steady after-work and weekend crowd. None of these are destinations you'd drive across the metro for. That's sort of the point. They're the businesses that make finishing a two-hour walk with a slice of pizza or a cup of coffee a five-minute errand instead of a production.
The Actual Move This Weekend
If you've only ever parked at one lot and walked one loop, the easy upgrade this month is simple: start at the south lot, take the paved river trail through Dellwood, then loop back on foot or by car to pick up the north figure-eight before the ground gets too soft from fall rain. Save the natural-surface stretches for a morning when the forecast has been dry for a few days. And if the leaf color pulls you further out, Bethel's haunted forest trail is close enough to fold into the same afternoon.
Saint Francis has spent years being described, fairly, as a small town with a river running through it. What that undersells is how much of the town is actually reachable on foot once you stop treating the river park, Dellwood, and Hidden Ponds as three separate outings. They're one walk. Most of your neighbors just haven't finished it yet.
If you're weighing a move within Saint Francis, thinking about what a property near this trail network is actually worth, or just curious what's changed in the local market this year, Team Lundeen knows this stretch of the Rum River as well as anyone. Let's Find Your Way Home — request a free home valuation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.
