Getting the Banadad Trails Ready for Skiing

Our trail maintenance  began this year in August when a crew of five people from the Minnesota Concervation Corp sent-up camp some four miles from the west end of the Banadad. Working from this camp land and from an another camp at the Bedew Lake Yurts the crew working ten hours days widen and clearied most of the western end of the Banadad. Eight days later the crew had logged 400 hours of labor widening two miles and clearing the down trees from a storm this past suimmer along five more miles of the trail.

Aided by Pete Harris, Ted and staff moved replacement bridge beams into the Croft Yurt on Sept 12 and 12 and opened the Moose Trail to the Croft yurt with chainsaws and using hand saws cleared from the Yurt to the Bridge site. unfortunately we will have to wait now until next spring to get the beams into the bridge.

Then is September the three mile section of the eastend of the trail outside of the BWCA was opened by Ted and staff using an ATV and Chainsaws.

October 22-25,  saw five members of the Northstars Ski Touring Club with the help of staff from Boundary Country Trekking clearing the first 1 1/2 mile of the western end of the Bananad and the removal oft many large trees along a 3 mile streatch of the trails west end.that had fallened in a storm earlier this summer. The following two days the North Stars cleared the Lace Lake Trail. In all the five member North Stars crew put-in some 128 hours of hand labor on the trail.

Two weekends later five members of Adventure Vacations, a Twin Cities travel company hiked 1 1/2 miles in along the old Winchell Lake Fire Trail, west of Poplar Lake and then cleared west about 1 1/2 miles almost to the Lodgging Camp The group logged about  35 hours.

Still more work to due so stay tuned!

First Snow on the Gunflint

First snow of the season! Over the last two days the mid-Gunflint Trail area has registered about three and one-half inches of snow. More is predicted through Monday. But don't break-out your skis just yet. The trails still need more work; the swamps and ponds along the trails are not frozen and it is quite likely we will have some more warm weather before we finally settle into our winter season sometime around mid November.

Minnesota Conservation Corp takes on the Banadad

A five-person crew from the Minnesota Conservation Corp (MCC) spent eight tough days widening the remote interior of the Banadad Ski Trail. The crew hiked in from the west end trailhead, setting up camp at the bench midway to the Bedew Lake Yurt Camp. After several days clearing the trail on either side of their camp, the crew then moved onto Bedew where the sent several more days widening the trail from the yurts to the midtrail junction. When they finally hike out from Bedew the crew had widen two full miles and cleared many down trees blocking the eight miles of the trail they covered.

It is speculated that the down trees were the result of a nasty hail-wind storm cell that hit the western end of the Banadad on August 13. Luckily it appears the storm missed the trail’s eastern end.

Now with this year’s work by MCC some eight remote interior miles of the Banadad have been widen over the last four years. Yet to be widened is about one and one-half more miles some of which it is anticipated will be taken-on this fall.

Bandadad Trail Receives Grant for Trail Improvements

The Minnesota DNR recently announce that the Gunflint's Banadad Trail Association will receive a $4500 grant to upgrade the 3.5 Kilometer Tall Pines Ski Trail located south of the Lace Lake Trail and near the Banadad Trail's eastern end. The project will inable the Association to hire a contractor with a bulldozer to level and clear rocks and stumbs from the surface of the previously hand-cut trail.

The trail was first marked in the fall of 2005. Later the North Stars Ski Touring Club and the Minnehaha Acadamy's Ski Team help to hand clear the trail. However the trail has been to rough to be very usefull as a ski trail. It is expected the latest trail work should be completed by this fall and the improved trail ready by this winter season.

The trail was built to extend the Lace Lake Ski Trail and to connect the Trail with lodging facilities at the Tall Pines Yurt camp with

Gunflint Nordic Ski Trails Carbon Off-Set to Gunflint Green Up

Nordic Skiing is normally considered an eco-friendly sport, northeast Minnesota’s Gunflint Nordic ski trail managers have taken this one step further. The Central and Upper Gunflint Ski Areas connected by the Banadad Ski Trail known collectively as the 210 Kilometer Gunflint Nordic Ski System this year went carbon neutral.

The trail managers calculation the cost of sequestering the carbon emissions produced from the maintenance and grooming of the trails based on information from the Chicago Climate Exchange, “Regional Estimates of TreeAnnual Carbon Accumulation,” and the Gunflint Ranger District, USFS tree plant cost estimates.

Then, yesterday, May 5, at the Gunflint Trail Association’s Spring Meeting ski trail representatives presented a $896 “carbon off-set” check to Nancy Seaton, Gunflint Green Up chairman, The money will be used as seed money for next year’s tree planting. Since the Gunflint Trail’s 2007 Ham Lake Fire, the Gunflint Green Up has annually purchased young trees and organized volunteers to plant the trees. To date the Green Up has planted over 100,000 new trees in the area burned over by the Fire.

According to Ted Young, Banadad Trail manager, “It was a great snow year for the Gunflint’s ski trails. That translated into lots of grooming hours. And as a result we put lots of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere- by our calculation the maintenance and grooming of the Gunflint’s three ski systems created some fifteen metric tons of CO2. We feel that offsetting this carbon by planting trees in our neighborhood, to us, is the right thing to do for the Gunflint and our environment.”

Resorts participating in Gunflint Nordic Ski Trail’s Carbon Off-set project are Gunflint Pines, Hestons and Gunflint from the Upper Gunflint Trails: Boundary Country Trekking from the Banadad and Bearskin from the Central Gunflint Trails. Golden Eagle Lodge, that maintains half of the Central Gunflint Trail offset the carbon their maintenance and grooming created by planting trees on their own property.

Note- Attached image- Left to Right Ted Young, Boundary Country Trekking, Nancy Seaton, Gunflint Green Up Chairperson, Dennis Neitzke, Gunflint Ranger USFS, Shari Baker Gunflint Pines Resort, and Sue McCloughan, Bearskin Lodge.

Snow Continues on the Gunflint Trail

In the mid-Gunflint Area from the “Pines” to about Gunflint Lake winter still lingers on in the shady spot and in the woods where continues snow from one to two feet remain. Along the Banadad Ski Trail the ski conditions are still great with bare spots only in sunny open areas. Once you get much past the South Gunflint Lake Road where the Ham Lake Fire took place conditions change drastically. Here must of the snow is gone- must likely due to the lack of shad in this area’s burned over forest. Also, as it usually happens, the upper Gunflint area again this winter received a bit less snow then the mid Gunflint, which may have helped it to melt faster.

Temperature are hovering in the 30s to 40s.

Spring Skiing on the Gunflint Banadad

April 17- Starting at Poplar Creek Guesthouse B&B, two skiers from Tofte skied 9-10 kilometers out and back from on the Banadad. Upon their return they stated the skiing was great and had a excellent time. The temperature was about 40 degrees. Today it is down below thirty and snowing.