Group works to create path along Montreal River

HURLEY — Despite completing their stated mission, the members of the Riverside Trail Committee agreed at the group’s meeting Wednesday not halt their momentum and continue working on projects related to the development of a regional trail system in the area.

Will Andresen, the head of the University of Wisconsin’s Iron County Extension Office, began the meeting by providing a brief overview of the group’s history.

The group had originally been directed by the communities of Hurley, Kimball, Ironwood and Ironwood Township to create a general trail route from Interstate Falls to the trailheads in Hurley and Ironwood, Andresen said, where the Riverside trail will join with a larger regional trail that is being developed to run from the ski trails in Montreal Wis., to Sunday Lake in Wakefield.

While there was a discussion of expanding the Riverside trail system so that it ran on both sides of the Montreal River the entire length of the trail, the group came to the consensus that such an expansion would be an overreach and to continue with the more limited route that the group had supported in the past.

This route would begin below Interstate Falls and run south on the Michigan side of the river to U.S. 2. The trail would then likely run east along U.S. 2 before cutting down Broadway Street to Hemlock Street. The trail would follow Hemlock until it connected with the regional trail. A secondary loop would run on the Wisconsin side of the river from the Hurley trailhead — located between U.S. 51 and the two rail bridges spanning the river — along U.S. 51 until it joined with U.S. 2.

Following the agreement on the route, the group debated which of several options proposed at the last meeting should be the group’s next focus.

The options included continuing to advocate for the completion of the Riverside Trail, shifting focus toward the Wisconsin side of the regional trail system — which Andresen said had been left largely ignored — or working with the Hurley K-12 School District to connect the trail system with the district’s safe routes to school project.

Andresen talked about how the success of the trail relied on someone on the Wisconsin side with the motivation to ensure that they would drive the project to completion.

“I guess what I’m really looking for, I’ll be perfectly honest, is energy on this side of the river to keep going. We need that, we need a champion. We need a group of people that say ‘this is important to us,’” Andresen said. “Maybe it’s a different group ... maybe we continue the Riverside Trail committee and wait and see how things go, and maybe create another committee.”

Mark Bowman, who was at the meeting as a resident rather than in his capacity with the Gogebic-Iron Waste Water Treatment Facility, felt that the varying timeline for projects meant the group could tackle multiple projects.

“Two hats. You have a trail committee hat, you don’t throw that one in the garbage, it’s still there, just set it aside until a task comes back to us from the local unit of government. And then we create a new hat for ourselves and that’s for the (trail) to Montreal,” said Bowman. “Some of these things ramp down a bit ... it’s not like they go away. I think you’ve got an energized group here, you might as well take advantage of what you have and maybe build off it.”

Ultimately the group decided to continue to work on the Riverside Trail as part of a larger mission to develop the Wisconsin side of the regional trail.

The group’s next meeting will be at the courthouse on the Wednesday, July 1, at 4 p.m.

Editor’s note: Daily Globe staff writer Tom Stankard contributed to this report.