The Trail Challenge will run from May 1 to September 30, but registration will close on September 23 to give participants time to complete some miles or Challenge Trails before the program ends on September 30. Any miles or challenge trails logged and/or submitted after September 30 will not be counted towards the challenge or the prize incentives.

You can complete miles by hiking, biking, walking, running, roller blading, and paddling. Any way you experience the Metroparks trails you can log miles.

The cost to participate is $25 per person and you will receive a custom Trail Challenge water bottle and a passport book with information on all 13 Metroparks. You receive your water bottle and passport by visiting a Metroparks Office, during regular business hours, and showing your registration receipt on your phone or in hard copy.

Then you can earn additional incentives by completing challenge trails. When you complete 3 challenge trails you will receive a custom Metroparks insulated lunch bag and if you complete challenge trails in all 13 parks you will receive a 2024 Metroparks Annual Vehicle Pass so you can keep exploring the trails for another year.

If you earn any additional Challenge Trail prizes, these will be mailed to you beginning November 1. They will be mailed to the address you registered with originally.

You receive your water bottle and passport by visiting a Metroparks Office, during regular business hours, and showing your registration receipt on your phone or in hard copy. Then go out and hit that park’s challenge trail and you are on your way to great prizes. You can find the park office nearest to you by visiting our website. All our park office hours are listed in the information for each of our parks.

After you register to participate, you will receive a follow up email with instructions and a link to add your miles to the online leaderboard.

Each time you need to add miles to the online leaderboard, you will go to metroparks.com/trailchallenge and complete the Submit Miles form. The leaderboard will be updated weekly to showcase miles logged, and Challenge Trail badges earned for additional incentives.

Registered participants can earn additional incentives by visiting Challenge Trails and uploading selfies with the Trail Challenge kiosk in it. Challenge Trail selfies are uploaded through the online leaderboard submission form. It is accessed on Metroparks.com/trailchallenge.  When the board updates each Wednesday the participant will have a badge on the leaderboard for each challenge trails selfie that is uploaded.

For three (3) Challenge Trails badges earned you will receive a custom Metroparks insulated lunch bag and if you earn all 13 badges you will receive a 2024 Metroparks Annual Vehicle Pass so you can keep exploring the trails for another year.

There are two Challenge Trail options at Lake St. Clair and Stony Creek Metroparks. So, there are 15 options of trails, but participants must complete a challenge trail in every park (13 parks) to earn the 2024 Annual Pass.

Challenge Trail incentives are mailed out in November for those that earned them.

You can look at all park maps by clicking here. Or you can stop by the park office for a hard copy map. You can use ANY Metroparks trail to log miles.

You can find challenge trails identified in your trail challenge passport book and on the event webpage. Staff within the park office can also help direct you.

We use your Household Number to make sure we are adding miles to the correct registered participant on the leaderboard, and to verify the correct person is earning incentives and prizes.

The number can be found at the top of your receipt or when you log into your account online, it will be at the top under your name. You will need this each time you log your miles.

You can use one if you wish, but you don’t need one, and you can’t link it directly to our leaderboard at this time. However, you will be required to take a selfie with the Challenge Trail signs and submit those selfies to earn badges and incentives.

You are certainly not required to. However, submitting a selfie to verify you were at a challenge trail is the ONLY way to earn the incentives and prizes for completing 3 and 13 challenges. If you choose not to take this step, you will not be eligible to receive those prizes.

Ages 6 and up are welcome to register and participate. There are trails for everyone to enjoy.