And They Golf Here Too

A dream 20 years from conception has been born out of the hardwoods surrounding the Northwoods Golf Course just a few minutes from the city of Rhinelander and two miles from an airport with daily jet service. As a sporadic golfer myself, I can still appreciate the beauty of Northwoods, which has 18 holes carved out of hills once owned by timber companies, now owned by the City of Rhinelander. Along the forested fairways, we see deer every day as well as the woodchuck that lives at the end of the driving range. Turtles love the rocky water hazards and country club life seems to suit them fine.
This course is not a pasture with rows of shrubs. This is wilderness golf. I’ve heard that Northwoods is a challenge and I can attest that some trails appear a veritable Easter egg hunt of lost Titleists and Top Flites.

XC in the Making

The silent sports potential of the property goes back 25 years to the discovery of the area by Nordic skiers, including Lee and Judy Swank who owned hundreds of acres of adjacent land and welcomed ski trails from the golf course parking lot. Northwoods Nordic volunteers and the city golf course committee have a longstanding partnership with a history of great grooming, signage, and events, including last year’s Ski for Light, a national event with 300 guides for the visually impaired packed into a warm clubhouse and moderately difficulty trails.
Northwoods has hosted the state Nordic ski championship and three years of the Heal Creek Dog Dash, where spectators can sit in the clubhouse and watch the half-way turn of a weekend of sled-dog racing. Rhinelander Brewing embraced the event with a special Mushers Brew, and trails are open for skijoring on Sundays and Wednesdays These trails are a joy for dog mushers because they’re groomed solid so paws don’t punch through the surface. A tethered bike-jour has already been pioneered on the new mountain bike trails that are the buzz this year.

Trail advocate and shop owner Al Jozwiak had been talking with the Swanks for decades and group rides had even been held on roughed-out deer paths ages ago. But the project remained stalled by too many moving pieces waiting for the dam to break and inundate the area with tremendous potential.
Lee and Judy Swank have been called the most generous people in the Northwoods. Lee has long been a patron of Rhinelander athletics with generous contributions, including funds that got the Hodag Dome off the ground, and he’d considered donating the Heal Creek acres for a long time, even before Judy’s cancer diagnosis. It was a question of when and where to seal the deal.
City personnel finally gave him the confidence that the land would be managed with his silent sports vision and the land donation was finalized.

Skiing Forward

Rather than the golf course committee, the property will be managed by the city parks department under the direction of Jeremy Biolo. His understanding of the outdoors gave Swank enough assurance to finalize the transfer and get the Heal Creek concept moving toward a system of multiple users and multiple trailheads. According to Biolo, it capitalizes on “existing infrastructure and proven trail organizations for a year-round, multi-sport, and nature-based outdoor activity” destination, as Joel Knutson’s original proposal began. “No other public recreation area in the Northwoods, let alone one situated so close to a city, would have such broad offerings and capacity,” Biolo said.

Biolo made it happen because somebody said he couldn’t.
Arduous grant writing and legwork proceeded. IMBA Trail Solutions laid out a general map and a mile of concept trail was built around the parking lot and 10th fairway. I became part of the story last fall when Double Schotz Trailcraft was hired to move the dirt with me on the excavator and my wife, Candy, making me look good with the finishing touches, including root cutting, raking, and rock arrangement. The terrain and support of the city have made it a pleasure to work at the golf course. We never took advantage of the beverage cart in the initial stages before the project moved away from the golf course into the more remote terrain intersecting ski trails.
Rarely logged hardwood forests reveal stunning terrain, and quality mineral soils and frequent boulder deposits give plenty of opportunity for playful trail building. The parks department has made sure this is a one-of-a-kind trail experience with winding cedar boardwalks across cozy wetlands and features such as the decommissioned golf cart along the 5th fairway with a ramp up, over, and through.

Welcome!

As summer ended, the six-mile green “everybody” loop was finally opened to eager NICA riders, who gave the flow and optional advanced features high marks. A young rider declared, “Those tabletops are mint!” which I later learned means they are “sick” or “very nice.” Local Uberlegger Chis Koeppl has been out of middle school for a short while and called the trails “spectacular,” which also means “sick.” He loved how they “integrate perfectly with nature.” That means that it doesn’t look like a bomb went off in the forest.

Lines have the curves of a creek and the finish of a country club. To be honest, it’s Candy who made the trail look beautiful by raking out a pristine tread and trimming the fringes so that no random roots are protruding like corpses. The Heal Creek hills have abundant rocks so she’s taught me which to pile for effect, which are there to armor dirt features, and which giant stones are a feature in their own right. We’re mindful of sight lines to let the rider flow and reveal the scenery to spectators.
By the close of fall, another stacked loop will take riders past more stony hills and a working beaver pond that will draw the birds to nest. Next year, more advanced loops will bring the mileage to around 15 miles with varied lines including rocky technicality and gravity options for all abilities. A skills area near the trailhead will use skinnies and rocks to keep the kids from doing wheelies in the parking lot while golfers unload their clubs. The coexistence of golf and silent sports will have to be managed, but it’s been done successfully before in several locations. Riders will be reminded to respect the golfers’ experiences by staying on trail and keeping their hooting to a minimum.

Après Kicking Back

I’m looking forward to unwinding in the clubhouse after a ride. There’s no dress code, but I felt more comfortable at the bar in a button shirt last time. There was a nice amber and IPA on tap, and the menu was solid. Several flatbread pizzas get no complaints and the Friday fish fry starts at 11 a.m. The Heal Creek property is on its way to becoming the multi-use haven of the Northwoods, with so many options including Heal Creek itself, a Class II trout stream.
Come to Rhinelander for a ski or Dog Dash in winter or hop across Highway 8 to ski or ride the Washburn Lake trails with a warmup in the Judy Swank shelter on the shore of Perch Lake. Washburn Trails host the annual RASTA Rally and Rock N Root mountain bike races, and they will have additional groomed fat biking this winter. RASTA (Rhinelander Area Silent Sports Association) also hosts a Snowshoe Hare race and a Global Fat Bike Day.

Rhinelander has a half dozen groomed Nordic trails, including the certified venue at CAVOC which hosts NCAA and USCSA races. RASTA grooms three fat bike trails, including the uniquely remote Enterprise system that will open a new loop this winter. The Mud Lake trails at Camp Tesomas will see racing return this fall with Rhinelander’s first NICA race, giving the home team a chance to shine. I got a chance to see those big kids shine on a test piloting run at Heal Creek. Some of those kids went way bigger than I imagined. Boulders I imagined as slow rollovers became launch pads to the vertically inclined. It was a joy to see the feature giving everybody a fun time.
It’s going to be a busy place.