Trail Overview
This trail is narrow and winding, with several gentle ascents and descents as it runs alongside the State Game Refuge. It passes through a forested area with abundant ferns and occasional wildlife, including turtles often seen on the trail. The route crosses a couple of bridges and runs near a marsh. Under one of the bridges, a large snapping turtle was observed, so swimming in that area is not recommended--numerous smaller trails branch off from the main route, including some that lead into the refuge itself. There are no formal or dispersed campsites along this trail, and it lacks basic amenities such as water or trash disposal. Cell service is generally available.
History
Covering more than 1.6 million acres of glacial lakes, red-pine uplands, and sphagnum bogs, Minnesota's Chippewa National Forest lets motorists experience the North Woods at an unrushed pace. Paved state highways soon yield to a lattice of numbered forest roads, most of them well-graded gravel that thread between kettle ponds and stands of towering white pine, the tree that helped earn the forest its 1908 designation as one of America's first national forests. The forest harbors one of the highest breeding densities of bald eagles in the continental United States, and patient drivers often glimpse loons, black bears, and white-tailed deer as they move from shoreline to clear-cut regrowth and back again.
