Miners Castle Snowmobile Trail 422 Closure

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1fujifilm

Well-known member
This one is gonna hurt..
I received an email from MDNR today at 8:59 AM stating the 13 mile snowmobile trail 422 from Trail 8 to Miners Castle in Alger County is closed for the 2016 season.
It further states permission from Alger County to use a portion of HWY 58 as a groomed trail was not granted from the Alger County Road Commission. The MDNR says they made every effort to keep the trail open but was unsuccessful, the MDNR are working on a alternate trail for next season.

Anyone have the scoop?

Frank
 
M

mburchart

New member
I emailed the DNR. he stated from trail 8 and the 422 section its shut down to the castle. however coming west from the bear trap up to miner castle road you can ride all the way up to it.

he said the MSA is working on it and it wasnt due to a landowner.

nothing like two kicks in the junk. no snow and now a closed trail section this year.
 
B

buddah2

Member
1fujifilm said:
Anyone have the scoop?
Click to expand...

Pretty much........1st off understand that the Alger County Road Commission has done close to everything in their power to screw over the snowmobile community for years now.......but what do I know, I've only lived here for 13 years.......

That said it involves a long standing dispute between the road commission and the local grooming operation about supposed "damage" to the road caused by the groomer(s).

Prior to this season the grooming has been a sub-contracted operation by the local concrete jobber. Currently there is an entirely new organization that will be responsible for grooming all of the Munising trail system this year. Hiawathaland Trails Association was formed by representatives of the SCMTA (Schoolcraft County Motorized Trails Assoc.), the Delta county club, and the Marquette club (Sorry, don't know the official names of the latter two). While the DNR claims to be working on a re-route for next season, it's actually HTA people doing most of the leg work. The Munising Area Visitors Bureau is still the actual grant holder for grooming in this area.

As to the grooming plans, currently the plan is to not groom any of trail 422 (Miner's Castle trail) north of where it splits off of Trail 8 (Coalwood Grade Trail). The road to Miner's Castle will still be there and accessible just ungroomed. And since all of the rest of H-58 (the road involved) is available to legal snowmobile traffic, I'll be very interested to see the ACRC try to enforce their supposed "ban".
 
1

1fujifilm

Well-known member
buddah2 said:
Pretty much........1st off understand that the Alger County Road Commission has done close to everything in their power to screw over the snowmobile community for years now.......but what do I know, I've only lived here for 13 years.......

That said it involves a long standing dispute between the road commission and the local grooming operation about supposed "damage" to the road caused by the groomer(s).

Prior to this season the grooming has been a sub-contracted operation by the local concrete jobber. Currently there is an entirely new organization that will be responsible for grooming all of the Munising trail system this year. Hiawathaland Trails Association was formed by representatives of the SCMTA (Schoolcraft County Motorized Trails Assoc.), the Delta county club, and the Marquette club (Sorry, don't know the official names of the latter two). While the DNR claims to be working on a re-route for next season, it's actually HTA people doing most of the leg work. The Munising Area Visitors Bureau is still the actual grant holder for grooming in this area.

As to the grooming plans, currently the plan is to not groom any of trail 422 (Miner's Castle trail) north of where it splits off of Trail 8 (Coalwood Grade Trail). The road to Miner's Castle will still be there and accessible just ungroomed. And since all of the rest of H-58 (the road involved) is available to legal snowmobile traffic, I'll be very interested to see the ACRC try to enforce their supposed "ban".
Click to expand...

Nice information, I remember the discussion about grooming vendors changing as so many people complained about the grade.
 
H

Hoosier

Well-known member
The MSA sent an email on this - action is needed. They provided the email addresses of everything that needs to be emailed to express concern about this decision. See info from link below. Can this be made into a sticky so people will see it and respond? It might take you 10 minutes. We all have time right now - no one is riding!

http://www.msasnow.org/

As a side note, I'm not sure why the MSA isn't putting this info out there on sites like this...
 
H

HardwaterHoosier

Member
I've been through these political issues before, where the public needs to speak up. If there was a form letter to send to everyone on the road commission or a list of topic points to put in your email, there would be a greater response. People are lazy by nature, it has to be easy or it wont get done.
 
S

snocrazy

Active member
1fujifilm said:
This one is gonna hurt..
I received an email from MDNR today at 8:59 AM stating the 13 mile snowmobile trail 422 from Trail 8 to Miners Castle in Alger County is closed for the 2016 season.
It further states permission from Alger County to use a portion of HWY 58 as a groomed trail was not granted from the Alger County Road Commission. The MDNR says they made every effort to keep the trail open but was unsuccessful, the MDNR are working on a alternate trail for next season.

Anyone have the scoop?

Frank
Click to expand...

MDNR is not out doing jack. It is is the local organization (Gerry) who is out doing all of the leg work.
He is out scouting on his own for a new route for the trail so you dont ride along h58 to the west before heading north on trail again.

I dont see any thing blocking of fthe trail. It is just not going to be groomed. I don't see them stopping any one.

This all goes back to the new grooming organization taking over from the old which has close tied to the road commission.
The old ousted groomer is also a big road contractor around here..... See the connection?
 
S

snocrazy

Active member
Spoke to a few people today. Seems the Road Commissions beef is the metal tracks on the groomer tearing up the road.
The tucker they have planned to be running trial 8 back and forth would pick up this trail.
The one john deer groomer with the plastic tracks is going to be going counter clockwise from close to holiday in wetmore out to trail 8
Tail 8 west to christmas - loop back up and in to munising. East out of munising usual way till road commission.
Then its running along m28 down to across the street from holiday and is back where it started.
(M28 section is new temporary reroute from wetmore to munising. Will be green diamonds.
Seems it would be a simple solution to plan the one plastic track groomer to hit 422 castle trail.
Seems a lot of people in town are real worked up over all of this. Not just snowmobiles but business owners.
See what happens. Hope they can work some thing out.
 
B

buddah2

Member
snocrazy said:
Spoke to a few people today. Seems the Road Commissions beef is the metal tracks on the groomer tearing up the road.
The tucker they have planned to be running trial 8 back and forth would pick up this trail.
The one john deer groomer with the plastic tracks is going to be going counter clockwise from close to holiday in wetmore out to trail 8
Tail 8 west to christmas - loop back up and in to munising. East out of munising usual way till road commission.
Then its running along m28 down to across the street from holiday and is back where it started.
(M28 section is new temporary reroute from wetmore to munising. Will be green diamonds.
Seems it would be a simple solution to plan the one plastic track groomer to hit 422 castle trail.
Seems a lot of people in town are real worked up over all of this. Not just snowmobiles but business owners.
See what happens. Hope they can work some thing out.
Click to expand...

Two minor corrections......looking from above at the route map the groomer travel for the Deere will be clockwise........and the Tucker Terra is the groomer the former sub-contractor used......the new groomers are the John Deere 7130 tractor and the Pisten Bully Trail Bully both with Dubie drags.......the Pisten Bully does, in fact, have metal cleats on it's tracks.............
 
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snocrazy

Active member
russholio said:
I've tried suggesting to them that maintain a presence on sledding sites. Fell mostly on deaf ears.
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Even being up here... You hear more thru grape vine than official. If it was not for Buddah telling me about a meeting I went to, I would never know.
They can do a better job of getting info out or having a dedicated web site etc. Even the grooming reports don't get out regularly enough if you ask me.
It is hard to get people to accept the internet and computers. :( I offered to help with the computer stuff and they seemed interested. It can only get better.
These guys really do seem to care and are putting in a lot of time and effort to make things right around here.

- - - Updated - - -

buddah2 said:
Two minor corrections......looking from above at the route map the groomer travel for the Deere will be clockwise........and the Tucker Terra is the groomer the former sub-contractor used......the new groomers are the John Deere 7130 tractor and the Pisten Bully Trail Bully both with Dubie drags.......the Pisten Bully does, in fact, have metal cleats on it's tracks.............
Click to expand...

So it seems simple - keep the one with met tracks away from that trail. Who knows. I am sure there is more to it.
I am sure some thing will get worked out.
 
S

sweeperguy

Active member
snocrazy said:
So it seems simple - keep the one with met tracks away from that trail. Who knows. I am sure there is more to it.
I am sure some thing will get worked out.
Click to expand...

I would tend to agree with the earlier post, about the groomer that got the boot, (due to poor performance another thread last year) being a road work contractor. Is in bed with the road commission and that may have impact on the trail situation. Post #9
All kinds of political crap like that over this way. And would tend to believe in areas with lower populations it may be even more prevalent.

Did the old groomer have rubber tracks or steel cleats?
 
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B

buddah2

Member
sweeperguy said:
Did the old groomer have rubber tracks or steel cleats?
Click to expand...

It depends......and both......the previous sub-contractor (concrete and excavating, not a road contractor) had 3 groomers total but it seemed like at least 1 was down constantly.......they had two older Tucker Terra's that had steel cleats and the John Deere tractor that has rubber tracks.....so it depended upon which did that run on a specific day......
 
S

snocrazy

Active member
buddah2 said:
It depends......and both......the previous sub-contractor (concrete and excavating, not a road contractor) had 3 groomers total but it seemed like at least 1 was down constantly.......they had two older Tucker Terra's that had steel cleats and the John Deere tractor that has rubber tracks.....so it depended upon which did that run on a specific day......
Click to expand...

They have picked up road contracts in the past. H58 going out to the plains for example. I know one of the guys that worked for them running equipment.
Who really knows. Its all speculation and rumors to be honest.
There is so much bs political crap and who knows who etc etc. Who really knows the real behind the scenes story? You will never hear it. We just get info from one side o the other and its biased most the time. This could all be avoided if the real and accurate info was posted and shared with the public.
 
R

redbirds5

New member
I've sent emails to the Alger County Road Commission and each board member; not a single reply from any one...
We all need to voice our stance on this issue, now!
 
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