I just found out that a major land owner north of North Bay pulled the plug on the A-D going north out of North Bay this year. It must have been done late because the change doesn't show up on the trail maps.
The chitty part about it is that the portion of trail crossing private land is small, but it shuts down a huge stretch of what was one of the best trails around North Bay, a trail that made for an excellent after-work loop close to town, and a trail that gave access to some of the best off-trail riding in the area.

I'm a little bit pi$$ed.

NB. I feel your pain. We have ridden that stretch of trail several times and yes, it is a beautiful stretch. We must not take land owners for granted. My hope is that an alternate route can be negotiated soon so that the northern route out of North Bay is still possible.

John.

Thankfully it's still easy to head north, it's just that you have to use the western side of hwy 11 to Sanddam.
I'm thinking that this summer they'll come up with a route around this guys land, or negotiate with him to reopen his gates for the winter.

Just curious. Any word on the reason for the closure?
Noise?
Off-Trail riders?
A new landowner (city-slicker perhaps)?
#####y wife??? :cussing:

I would think someone made him or her mad ticked them off real bad...went off the trail....it would have to be worse then that one would think...but who knows...sorry to here that...




Rick

Apparently he was fed up with atv's and 4x4's in teh summer. Don't know what that has to do with sleds in teh winter but anyway.
It's real tough to get off the trail there because it's all forested, and the trail does not pass very close to his house, so I can't see it being a problem with pipes.
We've had a bunch of land closures right in that area with no major cause of friction. The A/D just north of the Portage had to be rerouted over a very small section of land because the land owner decided to be a dick. No other explanation. It was a very short section of trail that was very old, predating the OFSC by years and years I'm sure, far away from houses, but this year the guy decides he doesn't want snowmobiles on it, so 1/2 km of trail had to be put in around his proprety.
The A trail coming off Trout lake had to be moved to the far end of the lake because a land owner was in a dispute with the city over taxes and wanted to take it out on whoever he could.
I guess we're lucky in that none of these closures are affecting access to anything important, or the real routes through North Bay, all they're doing is screwing with some nice loops that people like myself like to use for short rides after work in the evening.