A crew of about fifteen guys from two clubs recently completed a 300-foot bridge that opens many miles of trail to ATV's. The bridge is built across a wetland southeast of Minong WI. That crossing is on a snowmobile trail that had been closed to ATV's to protect the wetland, but now they can cross on the bridge without doing any damage. This creates a loop consisting of Trail #8 going east off the #35 railroad bed south of Minong. You turn south on #39, cross the new bridge and continue southwest through thousands of acres of county forest. On the map, it looks like you might have a mile or so on a backroad to complete the loop back to #35. It's a nice side trip off the railroad bed trail #35 that goes from Rice Lake to Superior.

A concern is that mudders will tear up the wetland instead of using the bridge, and get the whole thing closed again. Here's hoping that won't happen.

 

Great news. I can't imagine doing a 300' bridge. I've helped out on a 60', a 45', and a 30' but nothing like 300'. I still don't understand the mentality of going off trail around a perfectly good bridge to go through mud. They'll be the first to whine that a trail gets closed and then they'll go on it anyhow. Some people never learn.

 

You can see a picture of the bridge in my album. About a third of it shows in the frame. It's amazing what you can do with $20,000 worth of treated lumber and several hundred pounds of lag screws.

 

We had to replace a bridge about 3 weeks ago, due to a woman in a Jeep Cherokee going over a bridge that was designed for the weight of a quad or snowmobile. It cost $4600 to replace. She's paying for half. Funny that she was out at 2am on a trail she thought was "open" to 4wd trucks. The only reason we found out about it was that she was stuck half on the bridge and half in the stream. I imagine we would not have found out if she had somehow made it across. New bridge can support a snow groomer now.