First trail meeting held in Vergas

Contributed photo
The Heart of the Lakes Trail runs from Pelican Rapids to Perham. An advisory committee is working on connecting that trail to the city of Vergas and then potentially to Frazee and Heartland Trail thanks to grants provided by Partnership 4 Health.

By Robert Williams

Reporter

Both Vergas and Frazee city councils have accepted grants from Partnership 4 Health to conduct trail studies that could ultimately connect both towns and multiple trails in the future.

Consultant Patrick Hollister of Partnership 4 Health has spoken multiple times to both groups and each city is forming their own trail committee. 

Due to grant restrictions each committee must come up with a full plan for the trail in each respective town by the end of September.

The Vergas group met for the first time on Tuesday, Jan. 29, in multiple physical locations via Zoom.

The Vergas trail advisory committee consists of Hollister, Widseth Engineering representatives—city engineer Jeff Kuhn, assistant city engineer Blaine Green, and landscape architect Jillian Reiner. Other advisors include: Grant County engineer and trail expert Tracey Von Bargen, Vergas park board members Tony Sailer and Steph Hogan, Minnesota Department of Transportation project manager Mary Safgren, avid trail users Deb Sjorstrom and Mara Davis, Vergas clerk/treasurer Julie Lammers and Otter Tail County engineer Chuck Grotte who was filling in for the county parks and trails director Kevin Fellbaum.

Hollister is responsible for proposing and gaining approval for both grants, $15,000 to Vergas and $5,000 to Frazee, to study how the trails can connect. He approached both city councils around the same time in late 2022 and while the projects are separate they will share at least one of two community meetings later this year for public input; one is scheduled in Vergas and the other in Frazee.

The Heart of the Lakes Trail connects Pelican Rapids and Perham through Maplewood State Park. The Heartland Trail currently ends in Park Rapids, but Hollister is working with both Becker and Clay Counties to extend that trail to Moorhead.

Connecting to the regional trail expansions was listed as a priority in the Vergas comprehensive plan that was finalized in 2022. According to that plan, the regional trail expansions are likely to increase the attractiveness of Vergas as both a destination for recreation and a place to live. Connections to Vergas could increase visitor traffic and make the city a more desirable place to live for recreational purposes, as residents currently only have county highways to use to exit town via bicycles.

Widseth Engineering representatives will be responsible for creating the trail plan. The role of the advisory committee is to provide guidance in writing the plan.

The plan does not mandate that the trails must connect in Frazee, however, that is the logistic idea going into the creation of both groups. The Frazee advisory committee will be working on connecting the Heartland Trail from Acorn Lake through town to Wannigan Park.

Otter Tail County has already adopted a county-wide master trail plan that provides a framework for the Vergas committee. 

Early group discussions involved potential routes, gaining access to aerial imagery and Lidar—Light Detection and Ranging—a remote sensing method used to examine the surface of the Earth, along with right-of-ways, potential impacts and attractions along the proposed trail connections.

Regarding the potential route(s) of connecting Vergas to the Heart of the Lakes trail, they are minimal.

“There are not a lot of options,” Grotte said. “You pretty much need to follow some road for the most part because right-of-way and other issues get to be a big problem.”

The county’s trail master plan created in 2018 instituted the potential use of Highways 41 and 4 to get to Vergas, via a spur trail on the shoulder of the road, rather than a separate off-road trail.

According to Grotte, the OTC master plan route from Vergas to Frazee followed Highway 4.

Grotte noted those plans are broad and were created years ago, including an earlier plan that included highway 35.

Steph Hogan noted that Highway 4 is a tough stretch of road for a trail to follow. She suggested another option of winding around Rose and Wymer Lakes to avoid the traffic on Highway 4.

The Highway 10 crossing also creates an issue of whether to use Highway 87 into Frazee or reroute around Eagle Lake to connect to the current end of the Heartland Trails by the new bridge on County Road 10 near Acorn Lake.

“Crossing Highway 10 is no small feat; we want to do that as safely as possible,” said Kuhn.

The next meeting of the Vergas advisory committee is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 28 at 11 a.m.