Chalk up another win for the Ice Age Trail in Washington County.
By virtue of a new partnership between the Cedar Lake Conservation Foundation (CLCF) and the Ice Age Trail Alliance (IATA), another 2.5 miles of hard-surface road hiking will be replaced by trails on CLCF properties.
You often see hikers with back packs out on County NN in one of segments that have gaps in the 1200-mile trail system. Over a 60-year history, 700 miles of improved and marked trail have been created through partnerships with the Alliance.
“We are working on closing the 500 miles of gaps,” said Kevin Thusius, IATA senior director for land conservation, who started his career in West Bend 24 years ago with the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust. He was speaking at a well-attended CLCF education seminar at the Town of West Bend Hall.
The two organizations have been operating in parallel universes since Geoff Maclay got the land trust going 50 years ago. Under the new CLCF leadership of Linda Mutschler, the informal partnership has been developed. A non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) is in the works between them.
Hikers will soon be able to avoid high-speed car traffic on NN by taking new trail routes through CLCF’s Fox Hills property and a protected area south of the highway on the way to the DNR’s Polk Kames trails.
Volunteers will be needed for the trail building. That is usually accomplished through one of the 19 IATA chapters. West Bend is one of 24 trail communities.
The construction crews finish their work on a segment by putting up yellow “blazes” to mark the main trail path, blue for connector routes and white for loops off the main trail (like the Lockman Trail just north of West Bend Mutual Insurance).
The Alliance has grown to 600 members and oversees more than 100,000 volunteer work hours per year. The biggest draw is the camaraderie between like-minded people. Work recently completed includes some board walk in Ridge Run Park. A train head on Hwy. 33 is in the plans.
The Ice Age Trail, one of 11 major trails in the National Park Service, has been stacking up some incredible user numbers. A recent analysis by the Economic Research Center at the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater tallied an estimated 4.2 million uses of the trail, often by nearby neighbors The economic impact was pegged $450 million from hiker purchases like gasoline, lodging and food.
The Alliance is picking up about ten properties a year as landowners are moved to donate or sell rights of way. At that rate, it will be decades before the 1200-mile trail, all in Wisconsin along the final perimeter of the glacier, will be completed.
If the current stewards of the trail stay as visionary and purposeful as the founders, like Ray Zillmer and Henry Reuss, that absolutely could happen over another six decades. Meanwhile, the trail is a blessing for all kinds of people who enjoy and need the outdoors.
