Ivy Creek Greenway

AWESOME — CHALLENGING 3.5 MILE TRAIL!
Put in at Moe’s at the Mall of Georgia and run under the I-​85 overpass and head down the trail next to the river, pass over the wooden bridges and out to the bridge area and back for a heck of an up and down hills run. Some of the hills are daunting but man, what a kicker when you conquer them… hit the end of the trail and there is a suspension bridge out in the middle of nowhere, just beautiful, turn around and kick it back. When you get back to Moe’s it will be right at 3.5 miles.
Enjoy!

Before I even get started with my review, do yourself a BIG favor, and head to the Environmental & Heritage center and get one of their trail maps. Trust me, you NEED this map, because tons of trails are either poorly marked or not marked at all. At the very least, print out the copy I uploaded.
Now on to the review:
When a buddy of mine suggested a hike of the Ivy Creek Greenway, a place i’d never heard of, I thought yea! Let’s do this. We ended up getting started near the Courtyard hotel near Mall of Georgia, which is a nice and easy place to park… just head down the stairs towards Woodward Mill Road, and you’re greeted immediately by a «You are here» sign. Excellent!
Ivy Creek kinda meanders all over the place. The main Ivy Creek Greenway, which has been planned to be connected to the Suwanee Greenway for a few years, is 2.7 miles of paved trail, that’s in a mostly populated area, that’s great for walking, running, dogs and biking. Ivy Creek is marked off well along the paved portions. Sadly, Ivy Creek is not the only trail.
If you do like we did, and stumbled across the Environmental & Heritage center, you’ll also find yourself stumbling past the Treetop ziplining quest (which they were nice enough to let us walk through… very cool guys!), which looks like a lot of fun!
Many of the trails here have trail markers at the start, at the end, and if there’s any crossing/​splitting of trails. One such trail we struggled with was the sweet gum trail, which cut through the festival parking lot (not marked) and cut through what looked like an industrial park, complete with gravel, exposed sewage pipes, and lots of «are we reading this map right?» moments.
If you brave the Sweetgum, near the start of the Holly trail, east of the sweetgum trail you’ll find nice flowing water, which flirts with being water fall like, although you have to literally hop a creek to get to it (it’s worth it)
The sweetgum ultimately takes you back to the N. Ivy Creek trail, which i’d encourage you to continue down until you get to the observation deck. The observation deck overlooks a pretty big metal bridge, with a see through floor mesh, that dogs don’t like (more than one person said they had to carry their dog across the bridge because of how their paws sink into the mesh). The bridge looks as if it dead ends into nothing, but continue on the natural path to the left, and you’ll eventually hear traffic from I-​85. Continue a little further and you’ll come to the wildlife observation trail loop, and some trail markers here.
There are benches throughout all of the trail, save for maybe the sweetgum, but generally I thought the trail was fairly flat, but if for some reason you have concerns with walking or maintaining strength, i’d suggest doing just the 2.7 miles of Ivy Creek, and not the near 8.5 miles once you stumbled across all of the trails like we did.
I hate giving outdoor areas 3 stars, because there are some very beautiful areas here. I just can’t get behind a trail with this many smaller trails that have such poor trail markings. I hope they address this and soon, because you can easily get lost here.
If you’re in the area, and want a nice, scenic trail, I think the Ivy Creek trail will be great for you. Please print off a map first before you go if you’re not familiar with the area. It saves a lot of trouble!

Where to begin? We generally enjoy greenways in our area. The Fulton and Forsyth versions of Big Creek Greenway as well as the Suwanee Creek Greenway are all nice. We discovered Ivy Creek Greenway several years ago but it has not developed much popularity with my family.
The first main issue is that it is almost a stealth project. It is apparently funded by Gwinnett County, but trying to find web-​info on it seems overly difficult. Maps aren’t easy to come by; publicity is minimal; and good descriptions of trailhead parking? No way.
I noted that a new section of Ivy Creek Greenway had just opened, so we went to check it out. We started at the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center, which is likely the best place to park /​access it. However, there is fairly minimal signage there. After wandering up a service road for a hundred yards or so and giving up, we went back to where we had accessed the older section of the trail several years ago. After following that into the woods a bit, we eventually found a sign-​board with a decent map. After that, it was easy.
In contrast to most of the other greenways, this one is much hillier. This may be great for a workout, but if you have young kids or gearless bikes along, it can be challenging. The new section seems especially hilly, though it winds through some nice forested areas. It currently terminates at a sizable suspension bridge over Ivy Creek. I believe the county has plans to extend it, but i have no idea when. If they ever do connect this to the greenway in George Pierce Park, it will be really nice.
IIRC, the other end of the trail is over near the Mall of Georgia (sort of behind the peripheral strip malls, between I-​85, Hwy 20, and the mall itself). It wasn’t obvious a few years ago that you could access the trail from there, but they may have added signs. Cruise around behind the strip malls and look sharp.