HOUGHTON — The Department of Natural Resources and local trail groups gave updates on their work and upcoming projects at the Wake Up Keweenaw breakfast meeting Wednesday.

U.P. trails coordinator Ron Yesney pointed to several snowmobile trail outages soon to be reopened after repairs to damage caused by the Father’s Day Flood. First is the Lake Linden-to-Dollar Bay trail, which is scheduled to reopen on Dec. 1.

With that trail reopened, the DNR will turn its attention to the Freda loop in southern Houghton County, also closed by the flood. Engineering work has begun on that trail.

Other closures include Trail 13, where spring flooding caused a washout of the Sleepy River Bridge near Misery Bay. The DNR hopes to repair the bridge within two years, Yesney said.

The DNR maintains 1,885 miles of trail in the Upper Peninsula, Yesney said. The most recent additions are five miles added in Delta County. Snowmobilers successfully lobbied for a permanent easement program, which is funded by $8 from every snowmobile registration.

The DNR is also managing a growing amount of mileage for the non-winter months: 751 miles of ORV routes, 64 miles of ATV trail and 80 miles of motorcycle trail.

The terrain is less accommodating for ORVs. Because of their greater impact on the ground, it’s also harder to get agreements to cross private lands, Yesney said.

“We do have more and more ATV trail going in on private ground,” he said. “People are becoming more accepting of it, but we have quite a bit of work to do to catch up and make sure all these communities are connected, because you can see gaps. We’re really focused on those gaps right now. With the snowmobile program, we’re in kind of a pattern where we’re trying to maintain what we have, and the ORV program where we’re working to expand.”

There were 313,362 trail permits sold in 2021, compared to 130,000 or 140,000 for snowmobile, Yesney said.

“Snowmobile is still king in the Keweenaw in terms of the number of riders, but statewide you can see there’s a lot more ORV permits sold than there are snowmobile,” he said.

The DNR also owns 466 miles of rail-trail in the U.P., with a focus on improving aging infrastructure such as old culverts. It is working with the communities of L’Anse and Baraga to purchase an old railroad grade and connect them via trail.

Most of the rail-trails are multiple-use, with the exception of non-motorized trails in Chocolay Township and from Houghton to Chassell.

Asked if he foresaw an increase in funding for the Houghton-to-Chassell trail, Yesney said it was difficult because of the lack of a nonprofit sponsor organization. In that arrangement, the nonprofit will manage and maintain it, while the DNR provides grant funding.

The Keweenaw ATV Club has about 250 members and 50 corporate sponsors, said club president Darryl St. John. He described the club as the “pioneers of trails on private property” for ATV clubs; it deals with 53 private property owners between Calumet and Copper Harbor.

The volunteer organization breaks the trails up into sections, where club members patrol the section twice a year in the spring and fall and submit reports to the DNR. The club receives funding for maintenance of the trail from the DNR through revenue from trail stickers. The club then submits grant applications to the DNR based on its expectations for the upcoming season.

It will put $227,000 into trails for 2024, St. John said.

“If the club should fail, the trails close,” he said. “This is not a maybe. This has happened several times across the U.P., even in our area.”

The club was a big advocate for the financing to repair the Lake Linden trail, working with the DNR to secure $9.5 million in fundings, St. John said.

“We got the entire community, we got our state representatives and everyone involved,” he said. “We rattled a lot of cages.”

It’s also been instrumental in getting trails designated, such as Calumet-to-Copper Harbor and Ripley-to-Calumet. The trail to High Rock was recently designated, and the club will be making a big push next spring to upgrade the trail.

“There’s water holes the size of this room,” he said.

The club is also working to get the former trail from Phoenix to Gay redesignated after a washout. The designation would allow the club to receive grant money.

Mike McMahon, trail coordinator for the Keweenaw ATV Club, said he would like to see more members in the club, particularly younger members. Another issue is the growing amount of vandalism and trespassing on private properties. That could jeopardize the willingness of private property owners to allow access, he said.

“It’s people that are used to the mining company days up here, you pretty much had free rein of everything,” he said. “…It isn’t that way anymore. It’s private property. So you have to respect the people, respect the trail system and have respect for what the DNR is trying to do up here.”

Chad VanBennekom, vice president of the Keweenaw Snowmobile Club/Keweenaw Trails Services, said the club functions similarly to the ATV Club, but it is run more as a “nonprofit business.” Last year, the club received $433,000 in grant funding from the DNR for trail maintenance. It has a full-time payroll of employees who groom the 218 miles of snowmobile trail in the winter. Wages were at $95,000, which is not covered by the DNR.

The equipment is granted on an as-needed basis from the DNR. It is working on building an equipment barn by the Swedetown Trails to house the equipment, which currently does not have permanent shelter.

“It makes it harder to get started, harder to maintain,” he said. “We groom around 30,000 miles a year combined across our core machines. So it’s a lot of wear and tear, a lot of repairs and routine maintenance.”

A GoFundMe for the campaign is available at gofundme.com/f/keweenaw-groomer-barn-fundraiser.