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ORV trail developed to Fish Cove

Yvonne Robillard/Daily Mining Gazette A view of Fish Cove, where the Keweenaw ATV Club recently completed work on the trail leading in, helping creating access with grant funding from the DNR.

KEWEENAW COUNTY — The Keweenaw ATV Club, working with funding from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR), and with approval of the Michigan Nature Association, has developed an ORV trail to Fish Cove, in Keweenaw County.

The shoreline along Fish Cove is owned by the Michigan Nature Association, a non-profit conservancy, with which the club worked with to create the trail.

Mike McMahon, a member of the ATV Club, said the new trail is actually an old, abandoned logging road that has been cleared and improved for year-round use.

“It’s always been there, to Fish Cove,” he said, “but it was all grown in. You couldn’t even get in there anymore.”

The logging road, now the trail, runs from the Hoar Lake Loop down to Fish Cove, said McMahon, which is part of the club’s ATV trail system. The south end of the trail ends at a parking area the club created using funding a DNR grant.

Yvonne Robillard/Daily Mining Gazette Shown is a view of the entrance to the trail, formally a logging road, that the Keweenaw ATV Club has spent significant time converting into an ATV trail and improving access to Fish Cove.

“We got with the DNR,” McMahon said, “and they approved a grant for us to put a parking lot in there and gravel it, and improve the road.”

The grant money provided by the DNR comes from revenues generated from the sales of ORV permits, said McMahon, so that the new trail is funded strictly by ORV owners and snowmobilers, who purchase the permits.

McMahon said the Keweenaw ATV Club applies for grants every spring and every fall to extend and improve ORV and snowmobile trails throughout Keweenaw County, including the new Fish Cove trail, which McMahon said, is easy to find.

“From Copper Harbor, take the Clark Mine Trail west to the Mandan Trail,” he said and follow the signs.”

The new trail is multi-use, he added, meaning it is open to hikers, bikers, ATVs ORVs, and in the winter, snowmobiles.

McMahon said that logging is scheduled for the area this summer, which will open the view to a beautiful overlook of Lake Superior.

“The idea is,” McMahon said, “is to make it accessible.”

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