Trails

When we were in Duluth the other week to visit Jake for the day, I snuck over to Spirit Mountain to ride the new downhill flow trail. Recent heavy rains had the trail closed so I tried to find some of the old singletrack Scott and Sara Kylander Johnson built along with the COGGS crew. The downhill segments I remember were hard to find but was able to ride some of the climbs that were used in the old Powder Monkey course. The superior hiking trail was used a couple years making for probably one of the most technical climbs ever found in a race but off limits to riding now. One year mountain bikers were able to race twice at Spirit Mountain when the Green Man festival took place. Like most hippy like festivals, the shelf life only seems to be 2-3 years and no more Green Man festival racing.

Just before the trail opened up, Jens I were able to ride the upper part. It is a fun trail and will bring riders over but personally the trail seems out of place. There was a lot of dirt hauled in and I don't know how you can call a trail sustainable when 80 loads of fill is used to create something not natural.

Last week I rode from Maplelag to the lake cabin to help Jonell with a few chores. For the first time ever I got mixed up on the Strawberry mountain road which I have ridden a probably a 100 times. I'm blaming it on the Strava app. Anyways, it was a great 40+ mile ride, all on forest roads. I have been riding on these trails for over 20 years and like singletrack going from raw, rough, tight and technical to flowy and wide, the forest roads have changed big time. Little Bass lake road (above) use to be a rocky technical fast downhill but now has been graded out and filled in. The trails in the White Earth State forest are heavily used by atvs and snowmobiles in the wintertime and tons of $ has been dumped in to keep the trails and roads in good condition to accommodate this traffic.

Norris road after a recent grading, leaving fresh corduroy. The area doesn't see much vehicle traffic but probably some of the best gravel roads in the country.