Marshall Nordic Ski Trail Expansion - Phase Three
The Marshall campus in Duluth, Minnesota is situated on about 35 acres of hillside overlooking Lake Superior. The construction of a nordic trail system began in the summer of 2003 with a 600 meter loop in a wooded section directly behind the school building. The trail length was doubled with the phase two expansion in the summer of 2004 that involved covering a large section of exposed ledge rock with fill from a local road project. The spring and summer of 2005 marked phase three of the trail expansion. The challenge was to create a ramp from the upper section of original trail down to the football and soccer field area. The hillside is very steep and an unusual property corner forced the relocation of the old running trail. Once again, Todd Campbell, our trail designer and engineer was able to come up with a design for a ramp that would both be very skiable and be an attractive addition to the sports field area. In the spring of 2005, Nels Nelson Construction Company began the construction of the ramp with fill dirt excavated from a local water park project. With generous help from the St. Louis County Soil and Water Department, over 400 seedlings were planted. The trail was then put on hold over the middle of the summer as the focus on campus shifted to the construction of a new soccer field and sports practice area.
On the last weekend of August, Nels Nelson Construction once again needed a place to take a large amount of excavated dirt from a local housing project. For three days trucks hauled dirt and Jeff the bulldozer artist, crafted the ramp into final form. The top of the ramp is in a design called a “pork chop”. Skiers have the option of going 2 directions from all three corners at the top of the ramp. With some extra dirt a second ramp known as Homers Hump was constructed to take the trail around and past the football stadium concession stand. Another section of trail next to Brewery Creek was widened and smoothed out as Jeff moved between the soccer field and the ramp. On the side of the new soccer field is a large spectator berm. This berm along with the area around the soccer field will serve as trail area when the snow falls. All of the corners on the trail are now sloped to the inside. Jeff, our “bulldozer artist” is a fan of NASCAR racing and had a lot of fun shaping the trails and ramps to be safe and fun for skiers taking the corners fast.
Until the snow falls work will continue on all of the exposed dirt to pick rocks, seed, mulch and remove any roots. The section alongside Brewery Creek will be lovingly cared for by John Pokorny as an Eagle Scout project. As it stands right now the trail is 3 kilometers long. The phase 4 expansion will hopefully add another 500-600 meters of trail alongside Brewery Creek past some huge willow trees. If Todd is able to work some more of his networking magic it might even include a pedestrian bridge!