— I’ve always thought the Sakatah Singing Hills Trail should be more popular than it is.

After all, we’re talking about a 39-mile trail from Mankato to Faribault that travels through numerous small towns, cuts through Sakatah Lake State Park and links up with the extensive trail system in Mankato.

It should be THE premier trail in the region with cyclists and outdoorsmen alike traveling from across the state to experience it. The towns it passes through should view it as a viable opportunity to show off their community and boost tourism.

In reality though, the Sakatah is an afterthought for most trail users and the towns it passes through. Most of the trail traffic in Mankato can be seen on the Red Jacket and Minnesota River bikeways. Heck, even the newly-christened Minneopa Trail sees more action than the Sakatah.

There are logistical reasons for this. The Sakatah trail is located on the outskirts of Mankato, making it less convenient than the other in-town options. It also lacks a nearby destination to rival Minneopa Falls in beauty, and it doesn’t have the picturesque canopy of trees to rival Red Jacket.

However, that’s not to say there aren’t a few improvements that can be made to the Sakatah. Here are a few suggestions:

— The Sakatah is in dire need of resurfacing from Mankato to Elysian. Anyone planning a bike trip on the Sakatah either needs a seat with a lot of cushion, or a Kyle Busch-like ability of avoiding cracks and bumps in the road.

Resurfacing is an expensive ordeal, but dirt roads are more forgiving than that stretch of trail. How much fun is a 15-mile bike ride if your hands are raw by the end of it?

— Figure out a clearer marking system for the trail detour through Waterville. At present, the trail comes to an end at the western edge of the town, where trail users then follow signs through town to where it starts up again just outside of Sakatah Lake State Park.

The roadways are not very well labeled. Without the help of Google Maps, it’s a winding route through town that frequently leaves unfamiliar bikers feeling lost and disoriented. I know I’m not the only one that’s had to stop and ask for directions at the gas station in Waterville.

— Make Faribault more accessible from the trail. Everything I’ve read about Faribault points to it being a richly historic town with a wonderfully cultured downtown area.

However, you wouldn’t know it from the Sakatah. The trail ends near Interstate 35, and the only places to eat near the trail are Dairy Queen, Subway, Country Kitchen, Perkins and Burger King. Not exactly a Murderer’s Row of local eateries.

The historic downtown area of Faribault is actually on the other side of town from the trail. To get there, one must navigate a slew of busy streets and keep a constant lookout for some pretty serious traffic.

Faribault doesn’t have to go as far as Mankato did with accommodations, which involved linking the Sakatah to all major in-town commuter bike trails. But it would be nice not to have to dodge heavy traffic in order to remember Faribault as something more than the town with the Dairy Queen.

Of course, it’s easy to spout ideas about how to make something better. The difficulty is in coming up with the resources — in this case, money — to do so. It’s a tough economy these days, and improvements like the ones listed would be hard to come by on a tight budget.

Well, here’s a solution: Charge a nominal fee to riders. It might seem crazy, but it’s not as far-fetched as you might think.

I recently completed a bike trip to Red Wing that involved traveling on the Cannon Valley Trail from Cannon Falls to Red Wing. Daily bike passes for the trail were $3 and yearly passes were $20.

This seemed outrageous to me at the time. I’ve never had to pay for biking anywhere, much less a 20-mile stretch between two towns I’ve never been to. But after using both the Sakatah and Cannon Valley trails on the same bike trip, I can say there’s a definite difference.

Thanks in part to the revenue generated by fees, the Cannon Valley Trail is nicely paved, wonderfully maintained — no debris anywhere on the trail — and has information centers for each town. The info centers came in handy when I had to locate a bike shop in Cannon Falls and gave me good recommendations on sights to check out in Red Wing.

I didn’t mind paying a fee then, and I wouldn’t mind paying one for the Sakatah if it meant making the trail as great as it ought to be. Part of what makes a good bike trail is the communities putting in the effort to make it so.

The Sakatah Singing Hills Trail could be great, but for the time being, it’s just a really long bike trail that rarely gets used.



Alex Voigt is a Free Press staff writer. Contact him at 344-6389 or at avoigt@mankatofreepress.com. He also has a health and fitness blog at alexvoigtfitness.blogspot.com.