Now open: The Badger State Trail
Above, exiting the north end of the Stewart Tunnel
Two weekends ago, my intrepid training companion and brother-in-law, Adam, joined me for a 20-mile Badger State Trail ride from Monroe north to Belleville. Officially opened a month earlier, we were happy to encounter more than a dozen other cyclists on a hot and humid Sunday morning.
A handful of those folks we didn’t actually see because they were engulfed by the darkness of the 1,200-foot Stewart Tunnel just south of Belleville. (Note: If you go, bring a headlamp or bike light because the tunnel curves, leaving no visible light at either end for much of it’s span. Spooky but very cool.)
For a more thorough description of the Badger State Trail – expected to become Wisconsin’s most popular rail-trail once completed between Paoli and Madison – look for the September issue of Silent Sports (coming off the presses as I type this). McFarland High School teacher Joe Brady spent two days riding the 34-mile rail-trail to research this five-page feature story.
Here are a few pics I took along the bucolic trail.
When the trail canopy breaks, here’s a typical view.
With increasing bike traffic, can you blame this little guy for having second thoughts about crossing the trail?
The intersection of the north-south Badger State Trail and the east-west Sugar River State Trail south of Monticello – not to mention the BST-Jane Addams Trail linkage at the Wisconsin-Illinois state line – offer many long distance travel options for bicyclists.