May 15, 2008 - 04:06:25 CDT
One of North Dakota's favorite hiking, biking and horseback trails could grow in both directions.The U.S. Forest Service is extending the 96-mile Maah Daah Hey Trail another 45 miles from Medora south to the Burning Coal Vein Campground near Amidon.
Now it's proposing to make the trail system nine miles longer on its far north end, calling the north stretch the "Wolf Trail."
It's taking public comments until May 30 on a proposal to start the trail just outside the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and head up toward Watford City.
The proposal has two alternative routes and it's possible one or both might be built. Both end at the Forest Service's north property boundary on the Little Missouri National Grasslands.
Watford City and McKenzie County promoters also are talking about a 10-mile trail to hook up with the Wolf Trail. If that's done, people could jump on a 160-mile trail system at Watford City that winds through grasslands and Badlands all the way to near Amidon.
Gary Foli, project manager for the proposed Wolf Trail, said users would exit the new Wolf Trail into the North Unit on a two-track road that joins the park's paved road at Sperati Point Overlook.
Bikers would have to stay on pavement and exit the park to pick up the Maah Daah Hey, since bikes aren't allowed on trails inside the national park.
Engineer Curt Glasoe said the Forest Service is looking at a way to join the proposed Wolf Trail to the Maah Daah Hey on federal land around the North Unit.
The Forest Service built the original 96-mile Maah Daah Hey Trail through the Little Missouri Grasslands, starting at Medora and ending at the North Unit.
The south extension to the Burning Coal Veins Campground, called Maah Daah Hey II, was approved by the agency in 2007 and construction is scheduled to be complete in 2009.
Glasoe said bids for improvements to the campground and up to 25 miles of that portion of the trail will go out this month.
He said the Forest Service also is looking at trails leading off the Maah Daah Hey II; one four miles over to Initial Rock Historic Site and one eight miles toward Amidon.
The proposed northern Wolf Trail and the alternate would be fairly simple projects, involving mowing out a fair stretch on high prairie range.
Foli said unless public comments are persuasive otherwise, the Wolf Trail - one or both - could be approved in June. Work would start either this fall, or in the spring.
Foli is available at 842-2394 or gfoli@fs.fed.us.
PO wrote on May 15, 2008 12:45 PM:
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