Take a walk on a short stretch of abandoned railroad right of way. The Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western Railroad built through this area in 1882. It was quite an achievement and eventually reached from Monico, Wisconsin to Ashland, Wisconsin. In 1893 The Chicago and North Western Railroad bought the Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western Railroad. The line was in continuous operation for 100 years. At that time the railroad was officially shut down or abandoned with the approval of the Interstate Commerce Commission of the Federal Government. The tracks were removed a year later.
This portion of the abandoned line is now a snowmobile trail in the winter and a hiking trail the rest of the year. Once you have parked your vehicle at the parking coords, walk about 85 feet east along the road to see the start of the trail. You may disregard the “Trail Closed” sign at the gate when walking in, as that just means it is closed to snowmobiles after the snowmobile season is over.
Updated September 2, 2013. We were very surprised when the first cacher said the beaver dam was gone - must have been blasted out within the last couple weeks, as it was there every time we went out to work on placing the cache. Check out the difference in the water level in the pictures near the snowmobile bridge!
The Geocache Notification Form has been submitted to Sonja Margitan of the Wisconsin DNR.
The trail is open for walking
View along the way to the cache
Beaver territory!
When someone removed the dam, it left the beaver's home high and dry!
The water level dropped drastically when they removed the dam sometime shortly after we placed the cache.