Ice Age Trail Alliance trailbuilding season begins with Hemlock Creek boardwalk project

The trail building season along the Ice Age Trail begins this week with hundreds of volunteers scheduled to work in Barron and Rusk counties.

Volunteers will be replacing boardwalks in the Hemlock Creek Segment of the trail Wednesday through Sunday.

“The portion of the trail near the Murphy Flowage is one of the more popular in the area,” said Patrick Gleissner, trail operations coordinator. “As such, it’s in need of a little upkeep and love.”

Five new boardwalks will be constructed and installed. The current boardwalks are about 15 years old. Heavy frost heave has caused the previous boardwalks to become twisted and hilly, Gleissner said, and the new boardwalks will use westland pans to address the problem.

Other work conducted will include clearing of the trail corridor, tread maintenance and refreshing of the trail’s blazes and other signage. A kiosk at the trail in Birchwood will be a part of the scheduled work.

The Ice Age Trail Alliance conducts trailbuilding work from May through October each year. The work at Hemlock Creek will be the start of this year’s work.

“People from all across the state — even some from Illinois — come to these large-scale projects,” said Gleissner.

Some volunteers come to work for a few hours, a day, or the whole weekend. Many volunteers will camp in the area. Some especially ardent volunteers show up for multiple projects over the next six months.

“It’s incredibly impressive to see the amount of work that gets accomplished on the trail, for the trail, because of the volunteers,” said Gleissner.

More than 100,000 hours were devoted to trail-related activities by Ice Age Trail volunteers in 2023. That ranks fifth among volunteer hours in the National Park Service.

The Hemlock Creek project is the first of two local trailbuilding events this year. Work in the Blue Hills for the Dreamer Route is slated for October. The Dreamer Route is an 18.6-mile reroute of the Ice Age Trail in Rusk County, and it was dreamed up by Fred Nash with the Blue Hills Chapter as a way for trail hikers to witness the geological features of the Blue Hills.

There has been more than three years and more than 300 miles explored to develop the proposed route, Gleissner said during Superior Lobe Chapter’s annual meeting in January. The route is entirely within county forest land, and it crosses nine streams, but only two structures will need to be constructed.

The plan is to begin Oct. 24 starting on the north end at Bucks Lake Road where the trail joins the Hemlock Creek segment and work south. Gleissner said not much of the work on the multi-year project will be conducted during the four days scheduled for this fall, but after a decade of considering the plan, it’s a big deal to get started.

“We’ve colloquially stopped calling it the Dreamer Route because it’s no longer a dream,” Gleissner said. “We’re going to start building it this year.”