For a Decade, Part of the Snail Lake Trail Crossed Private Land. This Fall It Gets a Boardwalk.

On the west side of Floral Drive in Shoreview, a soft woodchip path runs across private property. Nobody planned it as part of a regional park. Walkers started using it because the paved trail in the Snail Lake section of Vadnais-Snail Lakes Regional Park kept going underwater. That path has carried trail traffic for most of the last decade.

Ramsey County's own records explain it plainly. The paved, multi-use trail "has been periodically flooding from high water since late 2015," and during high water "the public created an informal natural surface trail on private property to get around the flooded paved public trail." The homeowners later gave the county a temporary easement, and the county laid woodchips on the path to keep the soil from eroding. It also agreed to maintain the path until a real fix could be built. According to the county's published schedule, that fix gets built between October and December of this year.

How a Detour Turned Into Part of the Trail

The project took about ten years because a trail through a wetland can't simply be repaved. Someone first had to decide where the trail would go. Here is how it happened:

1. Late 2015. The paved trail in the Snail Lake section starts flooding during periods of high water.
2. 2020. The Vadnais-Snail Lakes Regional Park Long Range Plan Update goes through community engagement. In a Metropolitan Council process that year, the Floral Drive properties are named as a possible trail corridor easement to solve the flooding.
3. April 2021. The Pioneer Press reports that high water has damaged trails and amenities or made them unusable around Snail and Grass lakes. County leaders say they want to restore trail connections, while acknowledging the flooding itself may never be fully fixed.
4. 2022. A trail feasibility study draws public comment. The Shoreview Press covered residents' concerns about boardwalks in the park and reported that the design was still open to revision.
5. Winter into spring 2026. Tree removal begins along the trail. Shoreview expected it to be finished by April 1, 2026.
6. May 26, 2026. The Ramsey County Board approves temporary construction easements and permanent easements with the Floral Drive homeowners. These allow the paved trail to be built and the public to keep using it.
7. October through December 2026. Construction is scheduled.

The sixth step matters most. Before the county could pour pavement, it needed permission for public trail use on land it doesn't own. The board item says county staff spent the past year working with the residents on a design that set the final boundaries of those permanent easements. The money to compensate the homeowners comes from the Parks and Trails Legacy Funds, which the Metropolitan Council distributes.

What Gets Built Between Gramsie Road and Snail Lake Road

Once the easements were in place, the county could plan the full project. Ramsey County Parks & Recreation lists three main pieces:

• Removing and replacing the pavement on the trail from Gramsie Road north to Snail Lake Road
• Removing and replacing the pavement on the Snail Lake Blvd loop
• A new east-west boardwalk through the wetland, replacing the section the county calls "perpetually flooded"

Shoreview's project page adds a fourth piece: improvements meant to reduce flooding when water in the area rises. That wording is modest on purpose. Back in 2021, county leaders told the Pioneer Press that the flooding might not be fully fixable. So the plan doesn't try to keep the wetland dry. It raises the trail above the water with a boardwalk and secures a permanent route around it, so a wet spring no longer cuts the loop in two.

The county's board item also says the permanent easements give trail users an alternate route during high water. That makes the Floral Drive corridor a lasting part of the trail system instead of a temporary arrangement.

Where to Walk While Crews Work

Paving the Snail Lake Blvd loop and the corridor north of Gramsie Road affects the most familiar stretches of the Snail Lake section. The county has posted a project extents and trail closures map on its project page. Check that map before you drive to the beach lot or the pavilion lot at 4191 Snail Lake Blvd, which have 99 and 62 spaces. The Snail Lake section also includes a 0.9-mile trail segment on the north side and a 1.4-mile loop around Hanska Lake and its wetlands to the south, according to TrailLink. Whether each of those is open on a given day depends on the county's closure map.

Other parts of the same regional park, plus one county park a short drive away, are outside the project area:

• Sucker Lake section, 4500 Rice St. Biking and hiking trails, two picnic shelters, and parking for 115 cars. It's one of the places in the park where dogs are allowed, as long as they stay on the paved trails around Sucker and Vadnais lakes.
• East and West Vadnais Lakes. Twin Cities Outdoors describes an entrance east of Rice Street on County Road F and a southern parking lot reached from Vadnais Blvd. and Sucker Lake Road. These are out-and-back routes, not loops. The walk from the north lot to the footbridge is about a mile each way, and the stretch east of the footbridge runs a little over two miles each way.
• Island Lake County Park, 3611 North Victoria St. Open 5 a.m. to 11 p.m., with parking for 270 cars and a park map on the county's listing.

If you usually walk the Snail Lake loop with a dog, the Sucker and Vadnais paved trails are the closest substitute that keeps you in the same park. If you need a lot of parking for a group, Island Lake has the most of any option here.

When the Snow Arrives

The project's scheduled finish date runs into ski season. Ramsey County lists 2026–27 ski passes valid from November 16 through April 1. An annual all-access pass costs $85, an annual natural-snow pass $35, a daily all-access pass $12, and a daily natural-snow pass $6. The county grooms 40 kilometers of marked ski trails at five locations. Vadnais-Snail Lakes Regional Park is on that list, along with Rice Creek Regional Trail and Tamarack Nature Center.

Ski trails and a December construction finish could overlap at Snail Lake. The county posts trail conditions on its cross-country skiing page every Friday and as needed, so check there for the latest. Tamarack Nature Center has a 4K more-difficult loop, a 3K easier loop, and a 1K practice loop. It also has the county system's only designated snowshoe trail. Tamarack has its own ongoing construction notice, and the county advises visitors to plan for changes there too.

A December Finish, and Two Dates Before It

If the schedule holds, the Snail Lake work wraps up in December. That's around the same time Shoreview's holiday events take place. The city's free annual holiday tree lighting is Tuesday, November 17, at Haffeman Pavilion. The Santa Cruise is Monday, December 7, from 6 to 8 p.m., collecting donations for the Ralph Reeder Food Shelf and Toys for Tots. Before you go, confirm details on the Shoreview special events page.

Once the boardwalk is in, the stretch that has flooded since 2015 should stay walkable when the water rises, and the route along Floral Drive will be permanent public trail.

If you'd like to talk through what a park project like the Snail Lake trail means for your own plans in Shoreview or elsewhere in Ramsey County, the team at Michael Favre is always glad to help. Let's Find Home.