No doubt the Clubs,area biz & riders have been looking for a solution for along time & the land owner said "no trail access on my land until DNR reduces my development fines" & denied access. I'm very close to a 3 lakes biz owner that was hurt badly by the trail closing & felt stonewalled last year. I didn't want to go there but since you asked is there anything you care to say about resolution of the matter? Ok if not just wondering what changed? Really pleased & happy to have the trail reopened.
As far as "11th hour" that was referring to todays trail work. It appears that a solution was very recent since trail work all happening late in season after Dale inspected all of Vilas trails.
As I believe I said last year....don't believe everything you read in the papers. My post on this board was the only public comment of any sort made on the matter. The stuff in the paper was almost laughable it was so twisted. Like the saying goes...if you don't read the papers you are uninformed, if you do read them, you are misinformed. The position of ownership has not changed since the property was bought in 2007. Don't forget that a permanent easement for the old trail was offered before any of the dnr money grab stuff came up.
As far as what changed, the answer is not much, but at the same time a lot. The closing of the trail was never a permanent thing, it was the result of failed negotiations. The negotiations failed because some members of the snowmobile clubs got pretty confused when it came to telling the difference between a right and a privilege. When the trail was closed last year new people became involved and it was easier to start coming up with a compromise. It took a unanimous vote of the Clearwater Lake owners to allow the trail to be put back in place so everything was done very carefully so there wouldn't be another "those A**holes closed the trail for whatever reason I'm making up today" process again. Some other small things that changed were: Weasels burned down (in one day 2 yrs ago 78 sleds left the trail and crossed the lake to get to there), local law enforcement and the local warden have committed to making an effort to keep people on the trail (hard to sell lots in a private community when you have to add the disclaimer that everyone and their brother cuts through to the trail all winter), and the DNR finally granted access to the trails to cut a new trail location (it's only 50' but now there is brush between the trail and the lake which makes a pretty big difference as far as lights and noise goes). There's other little stuff that changed, but nothing really worth mentioning.
I'm sorry to hear about your friend's business. For their sake, I hope there is a lot more snow this year than last year.
Like I said before, it's all in the hands of the snowmobile community now. The agreement is in place, but it's also contingent on people following the agreed upon rules.
Hope I was able to answer your questions. If not, let me know. I've been a lurker here ever since I stumbled across the site last year when I had all the traffic to the website. You guys are an interesting bunch!
