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Minocqua Winter Park Looks To Expand Recreational Opportunities

Tim Gillin

A handful of people came up with a bunch of ideas Tuesday to increase the number of visitors to the popular Minocqua Winter Park and Nordic Center located several miles west of Minocqua.

Winter Park already has a good base of attractions: nearly 100 kilometers of cross-country ski trails, a winter tubing hill, snowshoeing trails and a skating pond. But the park gets little use in other seasons.

New ideas tossed out by representatives of Winter Park, Forest Riders Snowmobile Club and town office include summer musical concerts, mountain bike trails, hosting weddings, fall hayrides, geocaching, nature trails and even kayaking nearby Squirrel River.

Now planners from North Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission will try to figure out if any of those ideas will be moneymakers for the town-owned facility, which is run by the nonprofit Lakeland Ski Touring Foundation.  

Foundation board secretary Linda Wrobel says the planners’ report will help inform the next step.

 

"We're looking forward to having this study confirm what we as a board think," she says, "and then with that information from that organization we hope to be able to proceed with an expansion of some sort - we don't know what that will be."  

Wrobel says having enough snowfall for ski trails is their biggest concern each winter. Snowmaking equipment would guarantee some trails are skiable in years Mother Nature doesn’t come through.

But Wrobel says there are other limitations, including a ski chalet that’s packed to the seams on some weekends and a parking lot filled to overflowing.

 

"We have reached capacity," she says, "and on busy holidays and weekends we are just overcrowded - not providing a great customer experience for a lot of the people there, because we're just too crowded."

A full report is due to the town board in about four weeks.

 

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