MADRID TOWNSHIP — Snowmobilers and ATV riders now have access to complete their trips from Rangeley to Phillips. 

High Peaks Alliance announced Wednesday that a 600-foot connector was established on private land in Madrid Township to complete the Randy Bunnell Trail. 

The section at the Perham Stream crossing is a “lynchpin connector” between Rangeley and Phillips, completing some 25 miles for snowmobile and ATV riding, according to Northern Franklin Snowmobile Club President Dana Bowman.

The club spearheaded easement efforts in collaboration with Narrow Gauge Riders ATV Club, with High Peaks Alliance facilitating the process.

The easement secures access across privately owned land that represented a gap in the trail’s established route, ensuring riders can travel between communities without detours or breaks in the trail. 

“This 600-foot section may seem small, but it’s essential,” Bowman said in a Wednesday news release from High Peaks Alliance. “Without it, we’d lose a major connector.”

Some 11 years ago, High Peaks Alliance partnered with Bowman’s club and the land’s previous owner to replace the bridge across Perham Stream, a $150,000 project. At the same time, the landowner would only give a 10-year easement, High Peaks Alliance Director Brent West said. The property changed hands and was in the process of being sold again when this easement opportunity came up.

“There really aren’t any practical alternatives. It would have severed the connection from Phillips to Rangeley,” West said, adding that failure to secure the easement would shut down Maine’s Interconnected Trail System 89. “You would have had to ride all the way to Freeman Township before you could reconnect.”

It’s a vulnerability common across Maine’s motorized trail systems, which relies heavily on private landowners allowing access, West said. The loss of even a short segment of a trail can disrupt miles of riding and affect regional recreation networks. 

West said his group is one of a few organizations working on access easements — necessary efforts to make trails permanent and allow for better management and investment in trail systems. 

“Increasingly … clubs are losing access and forced to find alternative routes,” West said. “This small easement has an outsized impact and is an example of how we can be strategic in this effort … Deals like this take a willing landowner, negotiations, sometimes surveys, fundraising and a little bit of luck.”