WELD — The 20-mile loop that includes all-terrain vehicle trails at Mt. Blue State Park are closed for the season and may remain closed indefinitely.
The loop includes the towns of Carthage and Phillips.
According to Brian Bronson, the Recreational Vehicle-ATV coordinator for the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, the closure has little to do with storm damage, although there was some. The trail, he said, is simply too narrow for the machines now being built and has become a safety hazard.
That current loop, including bridges along the trail, is 50 inches wide. The standard for trails is currently 65 inches, set by the state in 2021, in order to handle the larger and oversized machines, Bronson said.
The cost to renovate the trail that runs through Mt. Blue, including widening the bridges is $100,000 for that 20-mile loop. His department decided that was too much to spend on such a short trail.
“We need to get the most bang for the buck,” he said. “We don’t have enough money to fix them all.”
He added that the trail was seldom used. The most recent survey showed that 203 riders used that 20-mile loop. He added that there is no active ATV club in the area.
The majority of the 6,000 miles of ATV trails in Maine are hundreds of miles long, and they have access to stores, gas stations and restaurants. Most riders prefer those long trips of 100 miles or more, stopping to eat before returning back to their starting point, he said.
The state’s largest state park, Mt. Blue offers camping, swimming, hiking, boating and picnicking. Utilizing the ATV trails was not a significant activity in the park.
Bronson has run the state’s ATV division for 37 years. It was established by the Legislature in 1985 and formally began its work two years later. The first coordinator lasted less than two months before Bronson took charge.
The state had hoped to use pandemic relief funds for trail maintenance and upgrades, but federal guidelines prevented Bronson’s team from utilizing the money for that purpose.
While the state is widening some of its trails and bridges to 65 inches, shorter routes like the loop that travels through Mt. Blue State Park will have to wait and may never reopen.
“If extra money becomes available, we might look at this again,”
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