Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
THE SNOWMOBILE trails around Hurley, including the crossing at 9th Avenue seen Monday, should be empty until next winter as the Iron County Forestry Department closed the trails in the northern part of the county Monday. The trails in southern Iron County remain open but will be re-assessed later this week.
HURLEY - Northern Iron County's snowmobile season is over.
The Iron County Forestry Department closed all snowmobile and ATV trails in the northern part of the county as of 8 a.m. Monday.
Forest Administrator Eric Peterson said this announcement means Trails 77, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 north of 11, 13, 15 and 17 north of 310 road are closed and gates along the trails will be shut.
As the trails in the southern part of the county around Mercer remain in good condition, those remain open.
Peterson said the trails that are still open are 17 south of 310 road, 9 south, 10, 11, 12, 14, 19, 20, 21, 23, 51 and 182.
The status of these trails will be reassessed Thursday, according to Peterson, and temperatures are forecast to be in the 50s for the weekend.
Initially the plan had been to close all trails within the county, however, an afternoon announcement updated the situation that the trails in the southern part of the county were holding up enough for the season to continue.
Trails will be re-opened on a case-by-case basis for ATV season after they have been determined to be dry enough and assessed for trail integrity. Department officials expect these re-openings could begin in mid-May, but it's weather dependent.
-Richard Jenkins
