Trail Overview

This trail is a well-maintained gravel road that is wide and regularly used, primarily because it passes several homes and provides access to two campsites: Little Cottonwood Camp and Moose Lake Camp. Local traffic is common, so it's advisable to drive with caution. Both camps offer basic amenities, and cell reception along the trail appeared to be reliable.

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Difficulty

This trail is well-maintained and regularly used by residents who reside in the area.

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.

Technical Rating