Cuyuna Lakes State Trail Tunnel Now Officially Open

It has been nearly eight years in the making, but the Cuyuna Lakes State Trail Tunnel is finally complete. Today was the grand opening, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony took place to celebrate the tunnel being complete.

The tunnel is located underneath State Highway 6 near Deerwood and Crosby and will now be a pathway for cyclists, walkers, snowmobilers, and much more. One of the most important reasons for the new tunnel is for the safety of not only the people on the trail, but also motorists on the road.

“We had enough incidents where it was close from a safety point of view that we really started pushing hard from an advocacy point of view, ‘well, what can we do to prevent something bad from happening,'” said Aaron Hautala, President Emeritus of the Cuyuna Lakes Mountain Bike Crew. “For motorists, they don’t have to worry anymore; they can just drive north, they don’t have to wonder what’s going to happen to them, so for all users on the state highway it’s a good solution, it’s a timely solution, and it was the right solution; it was a matter of, ‘let’s save a life,’ and we did today, that’s what we cut the ribbon for.”

The Cuyuna Lakes State Trail Association thanks all local business who donated and helped make the Cuyuna Lakes State Trail Tunnel a reality.