Coop's Corner: A November Day On The Elroy-Sparta State Trail

Wednesday, November 5, 2025

A November Day On The Elroy-Sparta State Trail - 2025/11/04

Ever since my MN Guzzi Rally weekend in Grand Marais where I took my e-bike rather than one of the motorcycles I've been anxious to do one of the Rail-Trails. Summers are short, the weekends fly by with other plans and/or responsibilities. I'd hoped to make any more bike rides overnight if not weekend events but with that, I knew that more likely to happen would be day trips.

Knowing that a long weekend was coming up due to a teacher training day, an overnight camping trip to ride the trail was in the serious planning stages. The weather forecast was looking ideal....temps in my 'zone' for comfortable exercise efforts. But with the short days/long nights in November and campsites in city parks rather than in the northwoods, the day trip seemed a much more realistic choice. I'd have camped in the pickup truck, a day trip meant I could take my more fuel efficient van....the receiver hitch bike rack works just as well on either one, flexibility that was part of my Master Plan involving both vehicles.

Starting out early in the newly Central Standard Time, I stopped for breakfast in Wabasha, then a stop for a sandwich and chips to carry along on the bike for lunch.

My trip to Sparta...

The Sparta-Elroy trail head, the trail heads SE from here. This point is also the eastern terminus of the La Crosse River State Trail....(maybe next time?)

The section of trail I'd hoped to do down and back. It meant going through the longest tunnel on the trail (#3 the longest at 3,810 ft) to Norwalk, turn around and ride back. I guess I knew, if you'd have asked, that the tunnels are closed in the winter. I'd forgotten AND wasn't thinking we were 'winter' yet.

Over Interstate I-90.....

Crossing Janus Ave.....Do you know how many times that I've ridden my motorcycle through this crossing?

Many.

I know the area SO well from riding through every road with my motorcycle exploring. It was great fun to see the area from a very different perspective. As Eric says when he gets the chance to snowmobile the area....."we think we know it so well..."

Looking SE toward Norwalk....you're looking at the exact path that the tunnel takes, under this hill's crown. I've accessed the east portal of the tunnel using the road against the woods.

Same spot looking SW, perpendicular to the tunnel's path.

Looking NW toward Sparta and Hwy 71....

The western portal in the dark woods...

Again, NW view, Hwy 71 and the tunnel on the trail.

Due to the closed tunnel, I turned back toward Sparta. My plan to load the bike back onto the van and pick up the trail beyond the tunnel to the SE.

So again, from Sparta to the tunnel and back....the battery was at 83% if I remember correctly. As is my custom, the e-bike's boost setting for the entire ride was at 1 out of a possible 5.

On the way back to Sparta .....

In Sparta, almost back to the trail head. Riding past the corn dryers I was treated to chaff in the air and the wonderful aroma of corn being dried.

I started out heading west, a short 2 miles to the next tunnel.

This is Tunnel #2, west of Wilton just over 2 miles.

Tunnel #2's eastern portal is just beyond that curve heading up hill....cutting through the top of the hill

New home being built just above #71...

Wilton a little over a mile to the SE......

Through Wilton and further east toward Kendal...

Another overpass for the trail east of Wilton...

And back to Wilton...

My ride both west and east of Wilton was roughly another 15 miles, so roughly 32 miles for the day. Getting back for another section of the trail this fall is unlikely but between the rest of the Elroy-Sparta, the 400 and the La Crosse River section, lots of good riding to be had. Plus there's the Root River and Cannon Valley Trail, both much closer to home.

I can't wait.

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"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)