Great strides made in developing new, all-season “off the fairway” trail at golf course

by Dan McClelland

For years since Jim Frenette began grooming the nordic trails at the Tupper Lake golf course which are enjoyed by hundreds of skiers each year, the wind and the sun have been the challenges to maintaining well-covered trails.

Now one new 1.5 mile long trail cut through the woods these past three years will soon offer tree-sheltered skiing almost entirely off the open fairways of the course. It will also provide year-round use by people walking and riding their bikes, and particularly the new “fat tire” ones which can be used year-round.

Last week the Free Press found three of the mainstays of the project finishing up the first of what will soon be three bridges that will cross small streams on the trail in the woods that rings the hometown course. With Trail Director John Gillis were his wife, Patty, and John's right hand man, Eric Lanthier. The small group was first drilling and then screwing the plank deck boards across eight or so utility pole stringers the town purchased recently from a supply of spare poles owned by the Big Wolf Association. The bridge supports were set in place and “pinned” at a work bee on a recent Saturday involving the core three plus volunteers Nate Lewis and Adam Hurteau. “Pinning the stringers” involved drilling through each utility pole and with a ground rod driver sending five foot long sections of rebar into the ground, securing the understructure.

“When I went to the town board six and one half years ago to get permission to cut into the woods along the ninth fairway, what I told them was we wanted a four-season, multi-use trail,” said Mr. Gillis, who was enlisted many years ago by his uncle, Jim Frenette, to help him groom and shape the network and who has been at it ever since.

Last year the town board named the popular trail network used by a growing number of cross-country skiers each year after Mr. Frenette, for his years of dedication to it.

“We're now 99% off the golf course,” he proudly said Thursday. Of the trail's length of a mile and one half, only 300 feet of it is out of the woods. That small exposed section of trail is between the ninth tee-box and the eighth green.

John and his volunteer groomers who include Mr. Lanthier, Councilman John Quinn, Mr. Frenette and others here groom five miles of trails, week after week all winter when there's enough snow.

The new trail will transfer 1.5 miles of the network off the golf course playing areas and put users into the more sheltered woods. The new trail through the woods is about 12 or more feet wide. It's wide enough to safely accommodate traffic in both directions.

The project has seen great gains in recent weeks with help from both the village department of public works and the town highway department.

Both DPW Chief Bob DeGrace and Highway Chief Bill Dechene have spared men and machinery when possible to help with the trail building, when they weren't needed with street sanding and road plowing. The weeks of mild weather and little snow around the Christmas season have made outdoor work possible.

Most of the trail work recently has had to happen at the last minute, Mr. Gillis explained. “For example, last Tuesday I got a call at 8a.m. that the town's Herbie Kentile and a machine were headed there, so up we went. There's not a lot of time to plan.”

He said he fully understands that, given that the town's and village's first obligations are road plowing and street sanding each winter. He said, however, he thoroughly appreciates the help when town and village employees and machinery are available.

“I can't believe what these guys have done for us!”

Over the past three years volunteer Eric Lanthier either cut the trees on the new trail himself or directed much of the tree removal that cleared the way for its development. Mr. Dechene and his crew did much of the stump removal.

On Thursday, the DPW's Brian Kennedy was hauling hardwood mulch fill from the Tupper Lake Hardwoods plant so town operator Herbie Kentile could spread it on the part of the trail that parallels the Big Tupper Road. He was building up the approaches to two other bridges to be built over streams on other parts of the trail.

In recent years Herbie has also volunteered extensively and used machinery donated by his former employer, Kentile Excavating during work bees when other sections of trail were opened and groomed into shape. “Herbie's been our trail builder since we started!” John stated.

The bridge the three were finishing Thursday is the largest at 40 feet long. The other two will be 20 feet and 14 feet long.

John said when all three are finished in upcoming days the new trail will be essentially done. “We've been at this for over three years!”

“We came around the sixth green one year. The next year we cut it a little more. So this is our third season working on this side of the course!”

Before the bridge construction could occur the town, which owns the golf course, needed to get permits from the Adirondack Park Agency to cross those three small wetland area. Former APA staffer and town councilman John Quinn filed the application for the town.

Mr. Gillis also said retired APA biologist Dan Spada helped to lay out the new trail to avoid as many wetland areas as possible and thereby avoid major wetland remediation.

He estimated that the two other bridges will be completed very soon. “Next big snowfall, we'll have the trail open!”

At a special end meeting in recent weeks the town board approved a quote of about $2,000 from Tupper Lake Supply to supply screws and other fasteners so the volunteers could start the construction of the three bridges. Two other building firms bid a $1,000 or more higher and the decision to buy from Tupper Lake Supply was conditional on having all the hardware in stock, as the bridges builders were eager to go.

Crossing the streams and wetland areas with bridges is what Mr. Gillis called “their most ambitious project yet” when it comes to trail-building.

The new woods trail is entirely on town property. Some other sections of the town's five-mile nordic network of trails runs up onto land farther up Mt. Morris owned by Preserve Associates LLC. The owner, Mike Foxman, recently permitted the town again to use their property for the trails.

The new in-the-woods trail is called “the golf course loop” on the town's trail map. It essentially runs around the perimeter of the upper nine.

Six and one half years ago when the small crew first developed what he called the fairway trail, there was a 30 foot long bridge built there.

“It's going to be a great trail,” predicted Mr. Gillis. “It'll get skiers out of the wind in winter” and hikers and bikers out of the sun in the summer.

Once the snow cover returns and trail grooming again commences, Mr. Gillis said they intend to open the trails to “fat tire” bike traffic, which is getting to be very popular.

Their best operation on snow is when the trails are hard packed, he noted.

The unusual bikes are “fun,” according to the trail director, and they work well in the snow. Some even come with the electric-assist mechanism, which is drawing many adults back to bicycling.

“It's like an electric dirt bike,” John joked.

The “fat tires” are soft and hold only ten pounds of pressure. The result, according to John, is that they grip well to snow or mud.

He said he hopes to approach the town board to try to purchase a special pull-behind attachment for the town trail groomer with an eye to grooming the cart paths on the golf course especially for the “fat tire” bikes.

“It will be another element to bring people to Tupper Lake. There are no groomed fat tire trails within a hundred miles of here!”

He said the popularity of those bikes is growing immensely.

On the section of course above the driving range and along the road to Big Tupper where the crews have been working this winter a short cut-out between the trail and the town road has been fashioned so that summer users won't have to cross the golf course to access the trail. “There will be no interruption for golfers,” he explained.

Mr. Gillis noted, according to what one engineer said, building the trail through the woods without the help of the volunteers and the manpower and machinery from the village and town would have cost the town about $50,000. “But I think that figure is way under what the actual cost would have been!”

The town's expenses on the new trail, however, have been a tiny fraction of that!