Brownstone Trail Annual Fall Maintenance 2025

11/9/2025

Volunteer with leaf blower on leaf-covered trail.

Doug Welty puts the leaf blower to work clearing ditches.

Author: John Ipsen

On the fine mornings of Friday and Saturday 10/24-25, BAT volunteers gathered to maintain the Brownstone Trail between Chequamegon Road and Lake Shore Drive.

On day one, five volunteers (Neil Howk, Phil Peterson, Doug Welty, Kris Wegerson, and John Ipsen) directed our energies first at clearing leaves out of the drainage ditches in front of Wild Rice Retreat. We used leaf blowers to move the leaves into windrows, then raked them into piles, and with tarps we deposited the leaves towards the lake. There was minor buildup of debris in the box and conventional culverts that we were able to clear out with the leaf blowers.

Then we migrated to the box steps and slope on the south end of the detour by the lighthouse and boathouse. Gravel that had been displaced by bike and foot traffic was raked up and transferred to areas where it was thin, so the underlying GeoGrid was covered up again. At the same time, we worked our way up from Blue Wing Bay Road, addressing the rolling grade dips by blowing leaves, then removing accumulated gravel, spreading it, and tamping it down. During this time, Phil Peterson also made profitable use of his pole saw to prune many branches that were overhanging the trail.

Volunteer posed with rake in hand on gravel trail.

Kris rakes gravel back onto the trail by the box-steps.

On day two, four volunteers (Bob Feyen, Kate Kitchell, Kris Wegerson, and John Ipsen) addressed the badly plugged box culverts on the slope on the trail north of Blue Wing Bay Road . The mesh covers were removed, gravel and other debris were cleaned out, and the mesh was re-installed. On two culverts, additional mesh (supplied by Rex Dollinger) was added so that the boxes could be fully covered. New hardware was employed, with an eye towards making future removal of the covers somewhat easier.

However, given that we found it quite easy to clean culverts of minor buildup using a leaf blower, hopefully these can be addressed in the future without the need to remove the mesh covers at all. We also dug sumps on the inlet side of these culverts and cleared out the outlet channels. The section from the telegraph pole on Lakeshore drive to Blue Wind Bay Road was cleared of encroaching brush.

Two volunteers focused on the culvert crossing the trail.

John clears gravel and debris from the culvert.

Two volunteer placing heavy wire mesh over open culvert.

Bob and John remove and replace the wire mesh on top of culverts.

Leaf covered trail with two cleared culverts.

Voila! All culverts are cleared and ready to divert water off the trail.

Finally, we also worked on the ditches and culvert on the final section of trail near Waterford. These were weed-whipped, and then cleared out of accumulated leaves and pine needles.