I arrived in Crystal Falls Sunday night and awoke to a warm clear Monday. My riding partner Duane could not make it until Tuesday morning so today I thought I would just explore a bit. I wanted to find a route east and check the accuracy of some ATV maps I brought. I have learned not to assume all the trails or roads shown on the maps are passable. There are some nice long designated ATV routes you can ride from here to Wisconsin or west to Lake Gogebic and beyond. I wanted to wait for Duane to ride those main routes. Today I would explore two tacks, trails and back roads.

You can hit the Chippewa Trail, snowmobile trail #16, right behind the Chippewa Resort. Heading east I had to avoid a few turtles here and there on the trail. They seemed to be digging holes for eggs. Deer were also a common sight on the trail. East of Crystal Falls the "Michigan Off Road Guide" U.P. edition showed Old M-69 open to ATV over the Paint River on to Peterson Road north. This was my planned route up to the Michigamme Reservoir area. What I found out is that it was closed about 1 mile past Runkle Lake. It did get me across the river so I went back to snow trail #16 south across M-69 and followed back roads east to Lake Mary Road and headed back north over M-69 on to Mansfield Cutoff and up to the Michigamme Reservoir, shown left.