7 Hour Plane Crash Trail

SCT21 said:
Are you refering to the 'bouncey' section north of the bridges on the Bill Nicholas and south of Houghton? If so, I ended up bailing off in that section as I had a slow leak in a tire and decided to run the highway to Hankcock to get it fixed before it caused more problems. We pulled off not to many miles north of the bridge section just as it started to get bouncier.
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The last section I named the "Baja Route" to the finish. Just curious to see if a car / unibody could make it through.
Thanks for posting!

GPG
 
Oh, sorry I had overlaid my own route so I had lost your section names, had to go back and look it up. So last fall when we did it the Mandan road, which is your Baja Section was being activley logged, and there was a closed gate across it off US41. So we weren't able to do that section, so we got to the tip from the end of US41. It's been many years, but I've driven the Mandan to the tip before, back around 2001ish... :) I was a very cool road. I think its safe to assume with the active logging on it last year and perhaps more this year that road will not be what it used to be for a very long time...
 
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Hello all, This is very enlightening info.. My wife and I are planning an UP trip the week before Memorial Day this.. Coming up from sw NY.. Hoping to get a few guys together for the trip up, from a couple FB groups..other than at the peninsula, are there areas along this route for dispersed camping? Not knowing how "populated" the trail will be during this time, I'd like to have a backup plan for someplace to camp.. We have a '16 Tundra, so seeing how Raptors can make it, I know I'll be fine.. Tundras aren't as wide as the others {which is is another reason why I bought it} so I know the trails shouldn't be much of an issue.
 
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Scout said:
Hello all, This is very enlightening info.. My wife and I are planning an UP trip the week before Memorial Day this.. Coming up from sw NY.. Hoping to get a few guys together for the trip up, from a couple FB groups..other than at the peninsula, are there areas along this route for dispersed camping? Not knowing how "populated" the trail will be during this time, I'd like to have a backup plan for someplace to camp.. We have a '16 Tundra, so seeing how Raptors can make it, I know I'll be fine.. Tundras aren't as wide as the others {which is is another reason why I bought it} so I know the trails shouldn't be much of an issue.
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Plenty of camping options surrounding the trail.
 
Hey Patrick! I'm planning on doing this route later in the year. Just wanted to verify that you were able to take Bill Nichols Trail right after McKeever until it joins back to the original track?

SCT21 said:
It was absolutely gorgeous, so if you can get out soon when color is still peaking in that area do it, the Keweenaw was a little behind in color. So I would imagine up there you'd have a few more days to get to it and get good color up there. The other note I will share is the original route doesn't cover much of the Bill Nicholls Trail, and instead jumps up onto M-26 in Mass City. Instead of that route, jump onto the Bill Nicholls at McKeever (which is just a spot on the map) and take the trail, you don't want to miss the 3 bridges here: 46.78452, -89.01201 (my camera waypoint).
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GPG3 said:
The last section I named the "Baja Route" to the finish. Just curious to see if a car / unibody could make it through.
Thanks for posting!

GPG
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Probably not.
You need at least 10 inches of ground clearance.
 
materialdistractions said:
My friends and I just finished this trail two weekends ago. We took a Wrangler Limited, lifted Crosstrek on A/Ts, and my lifted 100 series land cruiser. We started from the northern end and worked our way south. The trail in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest are fairly wide dirt roads. I actually had mentioned to my friends that a driving a Raptor through this section would be so much fun. North of the National Forest, the trail does narrow a bit. All three of our vehicles ended up getting some pinstriping. So, Raptors will definitely get some pinstriping. There is also a creek crossing north of the National Forest. We had no idea how deep the crossing was and the area around it was the muddiest part of the entire trail. Our recovery gear didn't include winches so we avoided it. I found the norther portion of the trail signifcantly slower going than the southern portion due to bumpier driving surfaces which includes logging roads. If you enjoy camping, as OP had mentioned, the camping at the northern tip has amazing views of Lake Superior. Hope this helps.

J
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We had a great time! great friends, time to do it again!
 
We're thinking about doing this trip too and have an odd question. I've read that that there are some blueberry patches up there in the forests. Can anybody comment if this exists, and possibly provide some additional information about them?
 
Hey Mike, sorry I don't recall much except mud and trees! But we're thinking of going back in mid August. Camping at the north end and working our way south in a day.
 
Planning on doing this route in Late Sept. in my F150 FX4, anything specifically that I should watch out for? Any great suggestions on camp spots, views, etc?
 
Coming to the party late but had a question. We will be coming from central Il so it will take us 7 hrs to get to Crandon and the start. Is there a good area/place to stop an hour or so into the trail so the next day we could get to the end to camp on the peninsula??

would it be a rushed day to get to the end the next day??
 
mtlangst said:
Coming to the party late but had a question. We will be coming from central Il so it will take us 7 hrs to get to Crandon and the start. Is there a good area/place to stop an hour or so into the trail so the next day we could get to the end to camp on the peninsula??

would it be a rushed day to get to the end the next day??
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I too would like to know a bit more here. Can the entirety of the trail be done in a day comfortably or is it better to break it into 2? I'll have the time for either, but the name "7 hour" is what is hanging me up.
 
Hey all, so here are my thoughts. This is all really on public roads, so pulling over and camping just along the route probably isn't going to work unless you are off route at a campground. So when we went, we left Rhinelander at like 8am, drove to Crandon and then headed north. We got there, broke a truck, dealt with that, then turned around and went back to Crandon and got there around 11:30pm. So we did there and back in a single day, with plenty of messing around. What I want to do is drive to Copper Harbor, camp on the lake shore (day 1), and then head south in a single day and end in Crandon (day 2). Not sure if any of this helps!
 
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GrumpyOldMan said:
Hey all, so here are my thoughts. This is all really on public roads, so pulling over and camping just along the route probably isn't going to work unless you are off route at a campground. So when we went, we left Rhinelander at like 8am, drove to Crandon and then headed north. We got there, broke a truck, dealt with that, then turned around and went back to Crandon and got there around 11:30pm. So we did there and back in a single day, with plenty of messing around. What I want to do is drive to Copper Harbor, camp on the lake shore (day 1), and then head south in a single day and end in Crandon (day 2). Not sure if any of this helps!
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That helps immensly. Thanks a lot @GrumpyOldMan !
 
Currently lots of mud and water (as of 10 days ago). Had fun doing the southern portion and some of the rocky parts.....the dirt roads were a blast in the Raptor. But ran into way too much water and got off trail. Good luck
 
Derek50 said:
Does anyone know the answer to this?
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Sorry about completly ghosting you there, I guess I need to check OB better! Yes, if I'm understanding your question correctly if you continue NE on the Bill Nichols it comes back to the original posted route.
 
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