Ards Forest Park - Red trail

Walking
County Donegal
4/5
3 reviews
Grade Strenuous
Length 14.1 km
Time 4 hours
Format Loop
Ascent 100 m
Dogs Allowed Under effective control
Start Point
Ards Forest Park
Finish Point
Ards Forest Park
Nearest Town to Start Creeslough
Lat. and Long. 55.1580805, -7.8883761

This is the longest Ards Forest Park trail and goes around the perimeter of the park, touching on a wide variety of habitats, each with its own associated flora and fauna. On forest road and track, it switches from level ground at the seashore to more difficult conditions at higher elevations, providing much fine hill, forest and coastal scenery.

OSI Maps

OSI Maps

Discovery Series Sheet 2
4/5
09/10/2024

Dorina from Austria

We decided to go on the red trail - the trail itself is beautiful, however it is not always easy to find the right turn. The road eroded near the salt marsh and it is not possible to cross anymore, we needed to turn back. It was marked only at one point of the trail.
4/5
07/03/2020

Dawn from Leitrim

Decided to head up to the forest park for the day today. Didn’t choose a great day for it as lashed rain for most of the walk. Decided to do the red trail, thankfully had downloaded the map from the site as there were trail markers either missing or grown over in places. Managed to figure out the routes where the markers were missing. As it was such a bad day we missed out 2 of smaller loops on the walk, so expected to have done less than the 13km listed on the maps.. however we almost did 15km so I think the whole route must be more than what’s listed?
Although the elevation is only 100m it feels like you’ve done more as there’s quite a bit of up and down around the whole route.
The trails were well surfaced the whole way round, and the views were amazing .. also a real treat to have both beaches and forest to walk through.
Will definitely be back again and will hopefully get the whole red trail completed next time!
08/12/2016

Yehuda from Israel

A very nice park.

Entrance fee to the park is €5. Toilets available at car park.

There are a few well marked trails. We found the Blue one the nicest, as it stretches over the sand dunes and the beach, although it is boggy. The other trails (we made the Red as well) are nice and well paved.

Nevertheless, the route marked on the map in this site is NOT marked on the actual trails.



We were able to complete the Red+Blue trails in ~3.5 hours. Total climbing feels more like 200 metres.

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