The urban areas in Stearns County, Minnesota, are like islands in a sea of corn, soybean and dairy farms. Through this bucolic setting runs the Lake Wobegon Regional Trail (LWRT)—named after Garrison Keillor’s fictitious lake—a 62-mile (100-km), 10-foot (3-m) wide hike-and-bike pathway. It opened in 1998 and today stretches through central Minnesota, connecting in Osakis with the 55-mile (89-km) Central Lakes Trail. In addition to hiking and biking, one of the major usages of this trail is snowmobiling in the winter. As snowmobiling is not allowed within the St Cloud Metropolitan area, having a staging area in Rivers Edge Park (City of Waite Park) with ample public parking for trailering their snowmobiles is huge for metro snowmobilers.

In 2012, a 3.2-mile (5.1-km) addition was commissioned to connect the LWRT to the municipal trail systems in the cities of Waite Park and St. Cloud, which connect to the west bank of the Mississippi River. The addition will also cross the Sauk River and utilize an active Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) rail corridor, private easements and a public road right-of-way.

Read more… (follow the link, then go to p. 38)