If you ride or walk the Mississippi River Greenway through Inver Grove Heights on a regular basis, you probably think of it as one continuous ribbon of pavement that runs along the bluffs from South St. Paul down toward Hastings. That mental map has been accurate for years. It is not accurate right now.
Two separate stretches of the Greenway are closed this fall, and the two closures behave nothing alike. One comes with an official detour route posted by Dakota County. The other does not, and the agency managing it is telling riders to use caution on a road with heavy traffic instead of offering an alternate path. If your plan for this weekend is "just take the river trail like always," you're going to hit one of these two gaps, and knowing which one you're dealing with changes what you should actually do about it.
The Two Gaps, Side by Side
Dakota County Parks and the Minnesota Department of Transportation are managing different segments of the same trail system, and each has published its own closure notice. Here's what separates them.
| Segment | Status | Detour | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Closure 1 | Grand Avenue to the Wakota Scenic Trailhead | Closed through October 2026 | Marked detour along Hardman Avenue |
| Closure 2 | Pine Bend Trailhead (111th Street) to 117th Street | Closed until repairs finish later in 2026 | No local detour posted; caution advised on Courthouse Blvd |
The Grand Avenue closure is the more forgiving of the two. Dakota County has a formal detour mapped along Hardman Avenue, and the county's own page for the Mississippi River Greenway spells out where to pick the trail back up.
The Pine Bend segment is the one that catches people off guard. MnDOT's own bike route page states plainly that because of heavy traffic on Courthouse Blvd, there's no local detour posted for that mile between 111th and 117th Streets. That's not a gap in signage that will get fixed next week. It's the agency's actual guidance: use caution, because there isn't a better option right now. If your regular loop runs south past the Pine Bend Bluffs, you're not missing a detour sign. There isn't one to find.
What This Actually Changes About Your Loop
For most Inver Grove Heights riders, the practical effect is this: the northern half of your usual route, the stretch that runs along Concord Boulevard, 80th Street, and South Robert Trail through the heart of the city, is unaffected. That's the segment that connects to Swing Bridge Park and the neighborhood restaurants clustered along the corridor. The trouble starts if you're used to continuing south past the city toward the Pine Bend Bluffs Scientific and Natural Area, where the trail winds through some of the least disturbed bluff terrain along this stretch of the river. That southern leg is the one running into the unmarked closure, and it's also the one where Courthouse Blvd traffic makes an ad hoc workaround less appealing than it sounds on paper.
If you've been avoiding your usual ride because "the trail's closed," it's worth checking which half you actually mean. The in-town segment is open. The bluff segment south of the city is the one asking for patience, or a different plan entirely.
The Destination Still Worth the Trip
None of this changes what makes the in-town stretch worth riding in the first place. Swing Bridge Park sits along the unaffected northern segment, and it's built around the old Rock Island Swing Bridge, a rail crossing converted into a pedestrian and bike route with a 680-foot pier extending out over the Mississippi. The pier is the kind of stop that turns a routine ride into a reason to bring a camera or just stand still for a few minutes. The park also functions as a proper trailhead, with fix-it stations, restrooms, water, and benches, so it works equally well as a turnaround point for a short evening ride or a rest stop on a longer one.
If you haven't been out to the pier since spring, this fall is a good excuse. The trail conditions between here and downtown Inver Grove Heights haven't changed. What's different is that fewer people seem to be making the trip, possibly because word of the southern closures has made some riders assume the whole system is compromised.
The Quieter Stop Most People Drive Past
A few minutes off the main bikeway sits a smaller destination that doesn't get nearly as much attention: River Heights Park, an eight-acre parcel the city saved from development in 2018. It's not a park built for speed or distance. It's built around a mowed loop trail through restored savanna and woodland, with a demonstration pollinator garden maintained by volunteers working alongside Friends of the Mississippi River.
What makes the partnership worth mentioning is what it actually restored. The garden includes native species like prairie smoke, butterfly milkweed, blazing star, and anise hyssop, and volunteer monitors have logged tiger beetles, native bees, and monarchs on site, along with bird species including bluebirds and broad-winged hawks. Friends of the Mississippi River's page on the park has more on the restoration work if you want the fuller picture. For a resident who's ridden past the entrance a dozen times without stopping, it's an easy detour that doesn't require any of the route planning the trail closures do.
The Restaurants Already on Your Route
Here's the part that's easy to overlook if you drive to dinner out of habit: several of Inver Grove Heights' local restaurants sit directly on or steps from the bikeway itself, not in some separate commercial strip you'd need to detour to reach.
- Mississippi Pub, with two outdoor patios overlooking the river and a glass-walled dining room, sits right along the corridor.
- Jersey's Bar & Grill and Dominick's Pizza are both within easy reach of the trail through the city center.
- Turitto's Pizza and Iwa Sushi round out the sit-down options for riders who want something more than a quick stop.
- Oyevida Lifestyle Cafe covers the lighter end, with sandwiches and salads for anyone mid-ride rather than at the end of one.
None of this requires loading a bike onto a car rack and driving somewhere else for dinner. It's the same corridor you're already riding, which is easy to forget when the closure headlines make the whole trail sound compromised.
The Season Just Turned
Inver Grove Heights Days wrapped up September 9 through 13, with the parade, the classic car show, and the rest of the Cahill Avenue lineup marking the last big civic event before the weather turns. That timing matters more than it might seem. The weeks right after IGH Days tend to be when the trail actually empties out and the riding gets better, cooler mornings, fewer bugs, and light that hits the bluffs well into the evening.
If your habit has been to wait out the closures before getting back on the trail, you're waiting on the wrong thing. The segment through the heart of the city, past Swing Bridge Park and the restaurant cluster, isn't the part that's closed. The Pine Bend stretch will reopen when the repairs are done, and there's no firm date attached to that yet beyond "later in 2026." Everything north of it has been ready the whole time.
If you're weighing a move to Inver Grove Heights, or you already live here and are curious what your home might be worth in a market where local infrastructure and access to the river corridor are part of the appeal, Reidell-Estey & Associates can walk you through it. Get a free home valuation or schedule a consultation, and let's talk about what's actually happening in this neighborhood, on the trail and off it.
