Trail News

A Walk Through Time

Volunteer Opportunity: 2024 Trail Maintenance Program

A group of trail volunteers caught in the act, pose with tools
In 2023, we rerouted trail off a forest road/logging road detour by Horseshoe Lake on the Chippewa Moraine Segment. The trail now travels high above two lakes to get to Town Line Road. A bench was also added at a scenic view point between the two lakes.

In 2024, we will be completing a 1 mile reroute of the Harwood Lakes segment at Kim’s Crossing. This will get us off the logging road. The trail will turn off the logging road and travel south along the edge of a wetland before turning east and traveling high along the south flank of a hill until it meets up with the west end of the shared Horse Trail. This route will travel out of sight of any future logging projects along the logging road. To the south of the hill is a wetland with several kettle lakes.

In 2023, our carpenters replaced a dilapidated bridge at Brunet Island on the Jean Brunet Trail. The new bridge was a big success, and we are going to do another bridge build at Lake Wissota State Park this year. A big thank you to our carpenters for their masterful work.

In 2024, we will take over maintenance of the trail that lies in the Chippewa Moraine National Scientific Reserve. This includes the entire Chippewa Moraine segment, and the western 1.5 miles of the Harwood segment. This will add 9.5 miles of trail work for the chapter. We have added trail adopters to this section of the trail who will monitor the trail and do minor trail cleanup. In April, we will have a major trail maintenance day to clean up winter damage to the Harwood Lakes and the Chippewa Moraine segments. We will need a full crew to accomplish this. If you are not on our trail crew (with a Volunteer Agreement-see below), consider joining our trail crew this year. There is something special about building and maintaining the trail. You will never look at the trail with the same eyes again after participating in a work project and learning what it takes to keep our trails in top condition.