Park behind the Buckhorn on Highway 48 most Saturday mornings this time of year and you will find the same gravel lot half full of trailers by 8 a.m. Riders top off at the pumps, check tire pressure, and roll onto Trail #10 without giving much thought to when any of this ends. Ask most of them when ATV season closes on the Tuscobia and you will get the same answer: mid-November, like everywhere else in Wisconsin. That answer is correct for about a third of the trail. It is not correct for the third that runs past Exeland.
The Tuscobia State Trail reads like one continuous ride on a map: 74 miles of old rail grade running from Park Falls in the east to a junction with the Wild Rivers State Trail just north of Rice Lake in the west, cutting through the Flambeau River State Forest and the Blue Hills along the way. On the ground it is not one trail with one calendar. It is three separate stretches, each governed by a different county's rules, and the Wisconsin DNR's recreation page for the trail spells out exactly where each stretch begins and ends.
One Rail Bed, Three Rulebooks
Start at the east end, in Price County, and the rule is the one most people already assume: ATVs are allowed only in the warmer months, from April 15 through November 15. Outside that window, the trail belongs to snowmobiles, skiers, and hikers, and ATV traffic simply is not permitted.
Keep riding west and the rulebook changes at the Price-Sawyer county line. From there to the Red Cedar Lake Bridge just west of Birchwood, in Sawyer County and a small slice of Washburn County, ATVs are allowed year-round, with one exception: the trail closes to ATV traffic every year from November 15 to December 15, timed to gun-deer season. That's the stretch that runs through Exeland.
Keep going past the bridge toward Rice Lake and the rule flips again. West of Red Cedar Lake Bridge, ATVs are not allowed at all. That final segment is designated as part of the Ice Age National Scenic Trail, and motorized traffic is barred outright, though riders can still cross the bridge itself to reach Washburn County's separate ATV trail system.
| Segment | County | ATV Season |
|---|---|---|
| Park Falls to Price/Sawyer line | Price | April 15 to November 15 only |
| Price/Sawyer line to Red Cedar Lake Bridge (through Exeland) | Sawyer, part of Washburn | Year-round, closed Nov. 15 to Dec. 15 |
| Red Cedar Lake Bridge to Rice Lake junction | Washburn, Barron | No ATVs, Ice Age Trail designation |
The practical result is that a rider based in Exeland actually has legal access to more months on an ATV than a rider based near Park Falls does. Park Falls riders lose the entire winter, roughly five months, and get nothing back. Exeland riders lose exactly one month, timed to the exact window when hunters are in the woods along the same corridor, and can be back out on the trail by mid-December if conditions allow.
What That Means Out of Rock Castle and the Buckhorn
The two trailheads locals use are both on this middle segment. The Buckhorn, at 11010 WI-48, is the parking spot for Trail #10, the Tuscobia itself. Rock Castle, at 11498 S State Hwy 48, sits on Trail #49 and has its own grassy lot across the road. Neither closes for the season the way a Price County trailhead would. Both go quiet for exactly the same 30 days, and then they don't.
The volunteer group keeping that stretch rideable is the Radisson/Exeland Trailblazers ATV Club, based out of Radisson and covering the towns of Couderay, Radisson, and Exeland in southwestern Sawyer County. Club members handle summer maintenance on the 9-Mile Loop, a side trail off the Tuscobia corridor near Couderay, and the club runs two or three organized group rides a year plus at least one overnight trip elsewhere in the state. Membership is open to anyone, not just residents, and dues run $15 for an individual, $25 for a family, and $30 for a business, renewing every June 1.
None of that maintenance work touches the Nov. 15 closure. That date comes from the DNR, not the club, and it applies to this specific segment because it overlaps hunting grounds, not because riding season has run its course by the calendar.
The Hard Stop West of Birchwood
Riders who treat the Tuscobia as one continuous route eventually hit a wall at the Red Cedar Lake Bridge. Past that point toward Rice Lake, the trail is off-limits to motorized traffic entirely, folded into the Ice Age Trail's protected corridor. The DNR allows ATVs to cross the bridge itself to link up with Washburn County's own trail network, but riders have to stay off the Tuscobia corridor proper from the bridge to County Highway SS. It is a specific, mapped boundary, not a general fade-out where the trail gets rougher and riders turn back on their own.
For someone riding out of Exeland, that means the western edge of a comfortable day trip is fixed. You can ride east toward Winter and the old railroad depot, or you can cross the bridge to pick up Washburn County trails, but you cannot keep the Tuscobia corridor itself going all the way to Rice Lake on an ATV.
Why the Boundary Lines Matter More Than the Mileage
The 74-mile figure gets repeated in every trail guide, and it is accurate as a measurement, but it describes a corridor, not a single set of rules a rider can plan around. A trip that starts at the Buckhorn and assumes Park Falls conditions will get the season wrong in both directions: riders will think they have to park the ATV in mid-November when they actually have weeks left, or they will assume year-round access and get caught off guard by the one closure that does apply, timed precisely to gun season.
The nonprofit Friends of the Tuscobia Trail, working out of the restored 1905 Winter Railroad Depot in Winter, has spent the last several years planning trailhead, parking, and invasive species work along the Sawyer County stretch with the county board of supervisors. Until those improvements catch up to the trail's actual boundaries, the DNR's own recreation page for the Tuscobia is the most reliable place to confirm current rules before a fall ride, especially as the Nov. 15 date approaches.
That single date is really the whole story here. It is not a season ending. It is a hunting season starting, and it happens to fall in the middle of a corridor that otherwise stays open longer near Exeland than it does anywhere else along the Tuscobia.
If you are new to the area and still learning which stretch of trail behaves which way, or if you are weighing what year-round access to a corridor like this is worth when you are looking at property near it, Hantke Homes has spent enough time in Rusk and Sawyer County to walk you through the details that don't show up on a state map. Reach out anytime to talk through what living near a trail like the Tuscobia actually looks like week to week.
