Change was made to avoid highway crossings and use state land
By Mike Lynch
A North Elba section of the popular Jackrabbit Trail has been rerouted, giving skiers a new path to follow when they leave the town-owned Craig Wood Golf Course.
The reroute goes through the Sentinel Range Wilderness and connects the golf course, home of the Scott’s Cobble Nordic Center in recent winters, with Mountain Lane, located off Route 73.
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The old section went on the south side of the road, through private property including the Adirondack Mountain Club’s Cascade Welcome Center, home to a Nordic ski venue.
“This is the biggest improvement to the Jackrabbit in at least a decade,” said Josh Wilson, former Barkeater Trails Alliance executive director, in a statement.
The Jackrabbit, founded in 1986, attracts cross-country and backcountry skiers on a route that links the communities of Paul Smiths, Saranac Lake, Lake Placid and Keene. It goes through both private and public land.
Wilson, who stepped down from his job last year to move to Virginia, was part of the BETA crew who finished the work in early November. He was joined by current executive director Glenn Glover, trails coordinator Dusty Grant, and volunteers.
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The reroute was made to avoid two crossings of the busy Route 73 and to move the trail from private land to state land.
“It’s gorgeous,” Glover said. “It’s just really pretty country, and going to be a great ski.”
BETA has been advocating for this reroute for years, but it got held up because the proposal needed to be included in the management plan for the Sentinel Range Wilderness, which was approved in 2019. Then BETA had to get the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s approval for the trail work.
The designated ski trail takes advantage of existing woods roads, and BETA didn’t create any new tread on the forest floor in creating it. The work plan allowed for the cutting of 108 trees one to three inches in width.
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The work consisted mainly of building a bridge and then brushing and bucking the trail, Glover said.
Hikers are being asked to stay off this segment because it isn’t intended for use outside the winter, and bikes are not allowed in wilderness areas. Snowshoeing is permitted on all sections of the Jackrabbit, according to the BETA website.
The new section consists of rolling hills and passes through a northern hardwood forest.
“There are some areas where there’s depressions in the trail that could possibly be tricky for a real new skier, but there are no extended, long steep grades,” Glover said. “It should be pretty forgiving, but maybe not the best spot for a person who has not been off of any groomed cross-country ski trails.”
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Glover said the old section is currently off-limits to the public because his organization doesn’t have agreements with the private landowners. However, BETA is in talks about keeping this former section open for skiing to create a loop trail, he said.
Parking for the new section of trail is at the Scott’s Cobble Nordic Center, although a small parking area also exists on Mountain Lane.
BETA is also hoping to add a half-mile section of trail parallel to Mountain Lane, which Jackrabbit skiers are now required to walk to get between the Jackrabbit and Old Mountain Road, a popular section with a steep downhill that ends in Keene. The proposed section would go about halfway down the road.
BETA also completed two new trails at the East Branch Community Trail system in Keene in October.
One trail is a half-mile long loop for walkers, bikers and skiers and has a view of Sentinel Mountain.
The second is a half-mile, one-way mountain-bike trail that allows users to have an uninterrupted descent from the highest elevation point in the system.
Top photo. Josh Wilson, former BETA executive director, skis the rerouted section of trail in the winter of 2023. Photo by Mike Lynch
Great work by BETA!
Are these “old woods roads” they are using, like Old Mountain Road in Keene? Jim McCulley might need to get his pickup truck over there!
So hikers are not allowed to use the trail, and the old section is closed? I see a lot of cars in the summer parked to use the trail so they are done?
Why didn’t they need APA approval for this project, only DEC?