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The Ice Age Trail winds along Black Earth Creek — one of the top 100 trout streams in the country. Along the Trail you'll find threatened and endangered species like the pine martin, timber wolf, trumpeter swan and Karner blue butterfly. The trail connects units of the Kettle Moraine State Forest and Chequamegon National Forest.

The Ice Age Trail, which will be 1,000 miles when completed, is an ideal outdoors escape for the region's urban dwellers. Sections of the trail are within a 30-minute drive of Milwaukee — home to half of Wisconsin's population— a two-hour drive from Chicago, and an hour drive from Minneapolis. Communities such as New Glarus, Dundee and La Grange promote themselves as "gateways" to the Ice Age National Scenic Trail.

Despite the exceptional cultural, historic, environmental and economic benefits of the Ice Age Trail, its completion and protection are in limbo. Development and road building pressures are on the rise. Southeast Wisconsin loses 87 square miles of farmland and forested areas each year to road building and sprawl. Deforestation — which led to the area's destructive floods in the 1920s and the subsequent establishment of the Kettle Moraine State Forest — has been replaced by the serious threat of forest fragmentation.

To maintain this recreational treasure and natural history gem, Sierra Club is working with local groups to permanently protect the Trail corridor and promote smart growth planning by local governments to preserve farmland, forests, wildlife habitat and the Ice Age Trail.

To help in this effort, please contact Dale Schaber at (920) 739-6041 or dschaber@athenet.net and john.muir.chapter@sierraclub.org.