Sunday night, Geauga County got our first taste of snow for the season. This made it the perfect opportunity to head over to Auburn Township and visit Beartown Lakes! This is one of my favorite parks to explore in the winter months thanks to the beautiful views and the sledding hill!
Note from Nov 10th, 2025
Currently the North Point area is undergoing construction to build a new pavilion, restroom, playground, and fishing pier! According to the Park District, the area is expected to be open to the public around December 1st. This construction eliminates about 1/3 of the parking spaces in this lot as well as the turnaround, so be mindful when parking.
Getting There
Beartown is located in Auburn off of Taylor May at 18870 Quinn Road. When you are driving south down Quinn it looks like the road is going to curve to the left and instead you arrive at an intersection with the entrance to Beartown straight ahead. The first road off to the left leads to the Minnow Pond Shelter. This is a seasonal road and not plowed in the winter, so use your judgement when driving that way.
If you keep going straight you encounter one of the most memorable parts of Beartown - the one-lane causeway! There is space on both sides to pull off and wait for other cars to cross and people are generally polite here. But it is really fun driving across the narrow causeway in the winter!
Once safely across the causeway you will shortly arrive at a round-about parking lot which is the main lot for Beartown. Here you will find a restroom, the North Point Shelter, the playground, and the main trailheads.
The Three Bears
The most prominent feature of Beartown Lakes is … the three lakes, obviously. The smallest of the lakes is located to the north of the causeway (on the right when you are entering) and is called Upper Bear Lake. The lake on the south side of the causeway is Middle Bear Lake. The largest of the three lakes and the one with fishing platforms, the dam, and the North Point area is Lower Bear Lake.
Clouds reflecting on Middle Bear Lake, viewed from the South side of the Lake Trail Causeway.
Upper Bear Lake with the single lane causeway visible on the left.
Lower Bear Lake with the dam on the right hand side. The pavilion at North Point is visible on the left.
You can fish in both Middle and Lower Bear, but Lower Bear has generally better luck finding some of the bass, Northern Pike, and Bluegill. In the summer and fall you will often see turtles relaxing on logs in Upper Bear.
Minnow Pond Shelter
This small shelter is open sided with a number of picnic tables, a charcoal grill, and electricity. Nearby are a restroom and raccoon proof trashcans. As with most of the facilities it can be reserved through the Park District’s website. As mentioned earlier, the road is closed in the winter and so the shelter is not able to be reserved then.
The North Point
North Point is undergoing significant renovation in 2025 thanks to a grant from Ohio Department of Natural Resources for $344,075.00. Construction began in July and was initially expected to be complete in October, but that has pushed out to the end of November.
Construction ongoing at North Point on the shore of Lower Bear Lake.
Once the site it open again we will go take some pictures. But you can see the concrete block structure that will be the restroom and the new “nature inspired” playground in the distance. The playground is to have four different areas, a 2-5 year old play area and three areas aimed at 5-12 year olds. The shelter has new patio space with tables and grills.
One of the new features I am most excited about is the Overlook boardwalk that can likely be used for fishing, watching the lake, and relaxing. The Overlook is somewhat visible in the below image from the south side of Lower Bear.
Lower Bear Lake looking north towards the construction at North Point.
The rendering of the construction shows that a number of design changes has occurred so it will be very interesting to get a hands-on look in a few weeks!
Sledding Hill
This isn’t the best sledding hill in Geauga County, but for those of us in the South-West townships, it is the easiest to get to. When you park at the North Point lot you can follow either the paved trail or the Whitetail Trail (deer icon) to get to the sled hill. The hill is a reasonably steep dropoff on the back of the dam that is somewhat cleared out. That being said, it is not uncommon to see kids go flying into the brush or woods. The hill can generally accommodate many sledders at a time with a less steep area on the right of the hill. Parents will often watch from the paved section of the dam.
Sledding down the dam at Beartown Lakes.
Currently parts of the hill are being reseeded, so hopefully the mud will be a bit more controlled this winter.
Walking/Hiking Trails
Beartown Lakes has four trails with a total length of 2.8 miles. Lake Trail (yellow duck) is 0.7 miles long and is asphalt. The rest of the trails are crushed gravel. All trails have a fair number of benches to sit and rest periodically and none of the trails have any major hills. There are some small inclines on Whitetail Trail.
All of the trails include bridges over either the lakes or small rivers/creeks. While picturesque and helpful for staying dry, these wooden platform bridges are a huge slipping hazard in the winter, so mind your step.
My personal favorite is Whitetail Trail as it has a fantastic mix of environments that you walk through. If you travel counterclockwise starting near the North Point trailhead you go through typical Geauga forests and a number of pretty creeks that can be flowing quite fast at times. You walk up and down slight hills through a couple valleys before getting to a pine forest at the southern end of the park. There, one side is meadow and the other is pine forest. Eventually you re-enter the maple/beech forest where you can observe some houses in the distance before reaching the southern end of the dam and a long bridge over Lower Bear Lake. You then go back into the woods for a short while and exit at a causeway between Lower and Middle Bear. There are some benches on the causeway to sit on and enjoy the sunset if you time it right.
A last gasp of red Autumn against the first snow of the year.