Melissa Wentarmini

On long wilderness trails, disappearances rarely happen all at once. A season passes without clearing, and brush begins to encroach into the corridor. A beaver pond rises, a windstorm drops spruce across the path, or a fire burns through jack pine and balsam. In a place as remote as Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), neglect accumulates quietly until hikers stop coming, route-finding becomes nearly impossible, and the forest reclaims the trail.

Blog: mnbiketrailnavigator.blogspot.com Instagram: @chris_chavie TikTok: @mnbiketrailnavigator Email: mnbiketrailnavigator@gmail.com I’m just trying to get butts on bikes. On many Monday mornings, while much of the Twin Cities settles into another workweek, Chris Chavie points his bike away from his home without much of a plan. Sometimes he rides towards open countryside and rolling farm fields. Sometimes he wanders toward a rail trail or strings together stretches of pavement and gravel.

Credit: KI Sawyer Air Heritage Museum. A Convair F-106A Delta Dart on display at the former base. Bundled in a winter coat despite the May calendar, 9-year-old Jessica Tessi pointed her mittened hand toward a string of headlights inching through the dark U.P. night. “I’ll bet that’s them right now,” she said to her father, Colin, as a 20-car motorcade crept down County Road 553.