AMERICAN DISCOVERY TRAIL
SOUTH ROUTE
The American Discovery Trail (ADT) is a coast to coast non-motorized trail. The southern route runs through Lawrenceburg, Friendship, Madison, New Albany, Corydon, St. Meinrad, Boonville, Evansville, and Mt. Vernon as it crosses the state. The southern route travels 366 miles as it meanders through the more hilly part of the state, following near the Ohio River.
LOCATION
Counties: Dearborn, Ripley, Jefferson, Scott, Washington, Clark, Floyd, Harrison, Crawford, Perry, Spencer, Warrick, Vanderburgh, Posey
Mileage: 366
West Endpoint (#1) - Specific: Indiana State Route 62 over Wabash River.
East Endpoint (#2) – Specific: State Line Road North of Greendale
Direction to #2 from #1: Southwest
TRAIL FEATURES
Type of Trail: Various
Surface: asphalt
Uses allowed: walking, biking, hiking
AGENCY INFORMATION
State Coordinator – Southern Route
Indiana Trails c/o Richard Vonnegut
PO Box 1688
Indianapolis, IN 46206-1688
Wk: 317-237-9348
trails@indianatrails.com
Trail Website
History
In 1980 and 1981, the American Hiking Society (AHS) led a coast-to-coast hike across the nation to raise awareness of the need for more trails and backpacking. AHS partnered with Backpacker magazine to propose a coast-to-coast trail that would unify the national trails system. A coordinator hired by AHS has worked with volunteer organizers in every state the ADT runs through in order to create the coast-to-coast trail using trail assets in place in each of the states. For more information, visit the American Discovery Trail website at https://discoverytrail.org/
Multimodal
Amtrak is friendly to cyclists and hikers. As such, you can bring your bicycle onto the train. If you are only going to traverse a section of the American Discovery Trail (ADT), perhaps you could start in a city that has both the ADT and an Amtrak station in it, travel to another location along the ADT that has an Amtrak station, and use the train to return to your point of origin. For the south route of the ADT, we recommend Cincinnati and St. Louis as origination and destination places where you could traverse the beautiful state of Indiana and take the train back to where you began.