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GREENSBORO — You can hike miles around a lake and see wildlife within a 15 minute drive of downtown Greensboro.

Or you can ride a mountain bike across 30 miles of trails.

If you’d rather hook some fish or get some paddling in, that’s nearby as well.

“Some trails are a lot more popular than others,” said Madeleine Carey, assistant trails and greenways director for Greensboro. “You can get out there for the exercise and get out there to escape.”

One impressive aspect of the trails is that nearly half of the more than 90 miles available for public use is contiguous.

“It’s not just 42 miles of trails all out in their own little area,” Carey said of the routes that are linked. “They actually connect. ”

The trails are divided into four groups: botanical gardens, greenways, trails in parks and watershed trails. Trails through places such as the Greensboro Arboretum are paved and wind through gardens.

About 40 miles of hiking and mountain biking trails are found around the city’s watersheds.

“We have an awesome mountain biking community in Greensboro,” Carey said. “The Greensboro Fat Tire Society built almost all of them and helps maintain them.”

Mark Gatehouse, a trails advocate for the Fat Tire Society, said Guilford County is fortunate to have so many trails in an urban area .

“For a lot of people in Greensboro proper,” he said, “they can do a short drive or ride through their neighborhoods and then ride a greenway to the single track.”

Greensboro also is well-positioned to easy, outdoor day trips.

State parks at Hanging Rock and Pilot Mountain are about an hour away, and the Dan and Haw rivers offer access to moving water for fishermen, kayakers and canoeists.

Outing groups are available for those wanting help.

“There’s the local chapters of the Audubon Society and Sierra Club, then the Piedmont Hiking and Outing Club,” Carey said. “Try hooking up with an organization like those to explore different areas of Greensboro with those who are more experienced.”

Contact Gerald Witt at 373-7008 or gerald.witt@news-record.com