justnorth posted on January 26, 2007 00:31 :: 1353 Views
An advisory group formed to help identify potential areas for locating all terrain-vehicle (ATV) trails within the Northern Highland-American Legion State Forest is recommending two potential ATV trail corridors for further study.
The group, which includes a variety of ATV and forest stakeholders, was created and charged with evaluating appropriate and sustainable ATV trial corridors in the forest as part of an update to the forest’s master plan, which was approved by the state Natural Resources Board in October 2005.
Using criteria developed by the Department of Natural Resources for locating, developing and maintaining ATV trails on state lands, the group identified for further study two corridors that traverse mostly state forest lands in portions of Iron, Oneida and Vilas counties with portions using existing roads and snowmobile corridors with some mileage on town roads.
One proposed corridor is simply being identified as the Iron County Loop, which if approved in its present study form, would run approximately 18 miles across mainly state-owned lands connecting on both ends with existing Iron County trails. It would require about 1.5 miles of new trail construction and crossings of both Hwy 51 and the Manitowish River. This proposed trail is dependant on the use of town roads and a small portion of private land.
Another proposal is identified at this time as the Lake Tomahawk to Sayner Trail. This 20-mile point to point corridor uses existing snowmobile trails and portions of forest road. There are possibilities for the trail to connect with additional trails to the south and north in the future, according to the stakeholders group.
“This is very much still a work in progress,” said Denny Leith, retired superintendent of the Northern Highland-American Legion State Forest who at the request of the Natural Resources Board was asked to assemble the stakeholders’ group and help direct its work. “The group has worked well and has invested many hours into this effort. They’ve taken field trips out to look at sites and they’ve worked hard to identify routes that would provide good riding opportunity and at the same time meet the necessary trail sustainability standards in place for state lands.”
The stakeholders group consists of 17 individuals from motorized and non-motorized recreation groups, local governments, and business groups representing a broad range of public interests in state forest recreational land uses. A complete listing of the groups, including meeting minutes, is available at on the Northern Highland-American Legion State Forest all terrain-vehicle trail stakeholder group page of the DNR Web site.
“The advisory group was given 12 months to deliver a recommendation to the Department of Natural Resources,” said Leith. “They are about nine months into that time frame. The next steps in this process will be to continue to study and refine these potential trail locations with an intent to bringing formal proposals to the department followed by the department presenting the results to the Natural Resources Board by this summer. Further public input would be sought at that time.
“In the meantime, I expect the group will also begin to discuss cooperative efforts addressing how these trails might be managed, monitored, maintained and funded.
“This is all still very preliminary but the group wanted to share its work up to this point,” said Leith. “The stakeholder group allows a brief period near the end of each meeting for public and media questions or comment.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Denny Leith - (715) 385-9226 or Bob Dall - (715) 365-8993
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