
Lake Vermilion Area Trail Report – January 6, 2025
By Brad Dekker, Assistant Area Supervisor, Parks and Trails, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
Trail conditions continue to be the same as the last couple weeks (copied below is the safety message for all riders and trail users). Ice in the swamps (currently from 6″ – 12″ thick) continues to build with these cold temps—one of the big upsides of our lack of snow at the moment. The report below is applicable to all trails in our area at the moment.
The main message to anyone riding/using trails this week is to use extreme caution when riding through swamps and beaver ponds. Swamps have anywhere from 6 – 12 inches of ice in them, and due to beaver ponds continuing to drain after ice formation, we continue to see a lot of shelf ice as we check trails and swamps. We are also seeing that many beaver ponds have substantially less water than usual , meaning more hummocks and stumps to watch out for, and also with that the dams have turned into a large steep berm in the middle of the trail. Watch out for these conditions especially in the following areas: from Big Aspen to Pfeiffer Lake and from Black Bear trail to the Y Store Trail on the Taconite State Trail; and on the Arrowhead just south of the Hwy 1 crossing, at the Frazier Bay shelter, and in the Elephant Creek/Blackduck grade segment north of Elephant Lake.
There is also active logging happening on a number of spots throughout the Grant-in-Aid and State Trail system. In those areas, slow down and give trucks and logging equipment space. No Motorized Vehicles other than snowmobiles are allowed on State Trails or Grant-in-Aid snowmobile trails.
The trail corridors remain open, but trails are not groomed and there is not a lot snow on the trails, meaning numerous exposed rocks and ground in those places with a lot of sun. Continue to monitor trail conditions online, as they may be changing daily: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/snow_depth/index.html