Hi folks!!

I’m hoping you can help. My riding buddies & I from the Kansas City area are looking for a good place to plan a 3-5 day riding trip sometime in the spring or early fall of ‘06. We tossed up MN or SD, but have no idea where to go or where to start looking. We are looking for a placed that would allow us to put on about 30-60 miles of riding a day without having to cover the same trails 5-6 times over 3-4 days. We would like a place that has good trails and not too severely rutted up, has the occasional area that requires 4-wheel drive, (i.e. possibly mud), not overly challenging that you have to be half crazy to ride the trails and run the risk of tearing up the ATV or getting killed, yet not boring. I’ve been to a few places around here and some trails are so packed with ATVs that all you see is a cloud of dust and hear the sound of ATVs racing by. Ideally we’d like someplace where there is plenty of room to ride and you don’t have to worry about slamming into anyone or being forced off of an embankment because it’s so crowded. Are there a few places you might recommend? What days of the week would be best to go and what time of year? We could either camp, cabin it, or hotel it. Never did the cabin thing before so that could be fun.

Our group isn’t too crazy. Our age group is late 30’s to retired age with sport utility ATVs, mostly around 400 - 500 cc’s. Sometimes we get a little nuts but never out of control.

Any comments, contact numbers, web sites or addresses would be helpful.

Thanks for all your help!!!

 

If you find out, I'd like to know too .. heheh.

Spider Lake is a lot of fun, but you'll probably be hitting some of the same trails, and you'll probably have 2 days worth of riding. On the positive side there are bypasses to almost everything, so you can take the easy route or the hard route on stuff. Short Spider Lake Trip Report/Pics

Up near Birchwood, Wisconsin are a LOT of forest trails. However, some of them are going to be extremely deep, and you are undoubtedly going to break stuff (almost everybody did last year, and almost everybody did this year). We rode all day and covered 20 some miles. Click here for Birchwood Trip Report and Pics.

If you can find a good cross between these two, I'd love to know about it...

On the Minnesota DNR's Web Site, you'll find most of the areas Minnesota has to offer. Some mileage estimates are very inaccurate, because they don't count the legal riding opportunities in state forests.

 

We've done three ATV vacations to wisconsin in the past six years - family riding with kids but some days are 'adult only' rides. Been to Darlington, Black River Falls and Iron River.

Of the three, Iron river sounds the most like what you are looking for. It's located in northern Wisconsin on the western end of Lake Superior. We stayed at a very affordable lodge in Washburn while the rest of our group camped in a nice campground only 1/3 mile away. All were on the local ATV trail system that hooked up to the main system. There are several hundred miles of trails and although we did repeat the first ten miles of trail of so, once on the main trail system there are several different loops that you can take. There is also access to different parts of the trails by minor county roads so you could leapfrog to a different part of the system by trailer and start from there. Trails are well marked but the occasional washout can give you a bit of a challenge. On average, we rode 80 to 100 miles a day.

There are many places to eat right on the trail system. If you go you must stop in at the Pub N Grub - almost sinfully good food, especially after a good days ride.

Do a search for Bayfield County Wisconsin, Iron river trails or www.watva.org to get more info.

BRF would be my second choice. Very ATV friendly and lots of places to stay with trail access but the trails can get kind of repetative. Lots of sand whoops, sometimes too many.

Darlington is mainly a 40 mile long old railroad bed - about as interesting and challenging as you would expect a railroad bed to be. There is a strict speed limit that's enforced by a cop on a Polaris with a radar gun. There are some more rugged side trails but the only time I've been there they were closed due to floods.

Jaybee

 

I have to say...That camping spot is bada$$ at Spider Lake. We usually hang out on the south side of 2 until last year when we went exploring. We stumbled on that site. The ghetto pontoon definately makes the site.

 

Great information!! I really appreciate the details! Thanks again!!!