Landahl park was one of the first trail parks I learned of in the area after running my 1st trail race in 2012 and have spent many miles there since.
Back in 2012 I ran my first trail race over on the Kansas side of KC at WYCO. It has lovely mountain bike trails but for everyday it is a bit of a drive, so I started asking about other trails. Like there must be mountain bike trails on the Missouri side too. Turns out there is so so many trails. For whatever reason there seems to be more active trail run groups on the Kansas side than the Missouri. I'm pretty sure that is just because not everyone realizes how many awesome trails we have over here.
Landahl was the first one that was mentioned to me. First time I went to check it out I was by myself and really only ran the fire road because I was sure I'd be lost for ever or be attacked if I went in to deep. Now I could care less about getting lost and while I think about the possibility of being attacked I don't worry about it. I feel that Landahl is a pretty safe place for running as it is kinda out there away from the city.
Landahl is on the East side of Kansas City with 18ish miles of single track. You can get to the park from the Argo road side or Truman road. There are directional signs on the trail but they are brown. They seem really obvious now but I never remember seeing them and thought they just blended in the first several times I was there.
Link to bigger, better view of map on Urban Trail Co. They have all kinds of Kansas City trail info.
The Rim Job trail was my favorite to run for quite a while but I think that partly had to do with not knowing exactly where I was out there all the time. Now that I do I'm a big fan of Tasty Goodness with the added Tasty Worm but I also enjoy heading over to the west side trails where there is a little bit more climbing. Will's Wanderer and Family trails are great when you just want to run fast as they are fairly flat. Then there is this great hill on the Truman road side of the park when you wanna practice going up/down a super steep incline. To be honest I like the whole system there:)
The park is named in honor of former Jackson County Parks and Recreation director William Landahl.
Friends and I are starting to randomly get together on Tuesday nights at 6:30 as long as the trails are open (we may figure on another plan when trails are closed) for running and classy beer tasting. We are super classy or not classy at all, hard to say but join us. We will post on FaceBook when we will be showing up.
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