Just in time for Christmas the Keweenaw Snowmobile Club and its partners delivered a gift to the Copper Country. This morning crews from the city of Houghton delivered loads of snow under the bridge for the snowmobile club’s groomers to lay down mats and spread out the lift bridge trail. There’s a lot of work to do today.
It’s important. It’s one of the biggest gateways into the trail system. It’s one of the big connectors. People don’t have to trailer across the bridge anymore and they can ride from pretty much wherever they want to the Keweenaw now with this. – Justin Trail Boss, Keweenaw Snowmobile Club
At the start of each season exposed rocks, fallen tree limbs, and water holes can create obstacles on the trail. The snowmobile club knows people want to enjoy their time in the back-country, but also want people to be careful.
The trail might be beautiful for one second there could be a nasty water hole around that next little bend or something So just ride with caution. We still have some large rocks exposed in some areas where snow is thin So we just really want people to ride right lead right within their group And be prepared for the unexpected We do have groomers out still in the day at times as we’re doing some trail maintenance and trying to freeze some of those things in so you may encounter a groomer out there and that goes across anywhere in the trail system – Ryan LaPorte, President, Keweenaw Snowmobile Club.
KSC President Ryan LaPorte says over the summer the club and Keweenaw ATV Club worked on several trail projects to improve conditions.
So for this season we do still have trails 120 and 121 out around Freda closed. We did about 50-60% of the work out there that needs to happen for those to reopen next year. There’s some major bridge work that the DNR is working through some engineering on to get that one back next year.
And then right now we’ve got a temporary closure on trail 124 that goes between Vansville and Gay for some logging. And that’s going to go on probably until early to mid-January is kind of the expectation right now until we get a good hard freeze and those guys can get into some different grounds to take care of that logging.
They’re going to be in that region and be actively on the trail. So we’re going to respect those guys, give them their space to work. Those logging companies and operations are very dangerous. We don’t want to be trespassing through there. So we’ve got that well marked at both ends of that trail and we’ll stay out of there.
We would ask that all of our riders in the area do the same. Respect that. That landowner owns a majority of our private land trails across the entire trail system. If we lose that or disrespect that, we could lose a significant amount of trails in the area. – Ryan LaPorte, President, Keweenaw Snowmobile Club
Before the bridge is locked into place The Snowmobile Club needs clearance from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Michigan Department of Transportation. Because the Portage Canal is a federal waterway, the Coast Guard must stow its vessels, and the state’s transportation department needs to complete safety inspections. The collaboration is vital to locking the bridge in place.
Crews expect to finish work sometime this afternoon. The Keweenaw Snowmobile Club says the bridge will open for use in the evening, after 6 pm. Tomorrow the trail will be ready for groups heading out this weekend.
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