Stand on the trestle bridge just north of Bonduel and you can see the whole village laid out below you: the water tower, the grain elevator, the roofline of Cedar Park's shelter. What you can't do is get there. The bridge carries the Mountain-Bay State Trail straight over Highway 117 without ever touching Main Street, and if you're on a bike wanting a burger, you backtrack to North Street, cut east, then turn south into town. The trail was never routed to visit Bonduel. It was routed to avoid stopping.
That's not an oversight. It's the shape of a 30-year-old rail corridor doing exactly what rail corridors do, and this fall it happens to matter more than usual, because 2026 is the trail's 30th anniversary and the people who maintain it are throwing a season's worth of events to mark it.
A Rail Line That Stopped Running Before Most Riders Were Born
The Mountain-Bay State Trail follows a former Chicago and North Western Railroad line that stopped carrying freight in 1982. The state converted it into a trail in 1996, which makes this year the 30th since it opened. Eighty-three miles of it run between Weston, near Wausau, and Howard, on the north side of Green Bay, and more than half of that total, 53 miles, sits inside Shawano County. Bonduel is one stop along that county-length stretch, tucked between the city of Shawano to the west and Pulaski to the east.
Friends of the Mountain-Bay State Trail – Shawano County, working with the nonprofit Shawano Pathways, built a season of free programming around the anniversary. Mathison, who helped organize the anniversary season, told the Wausau Pilot & Review she hopes the events build "appreciation for something new in your backyard." Some of that programming has already come and gone this summer: a Native American Plant Medicines Walk led by members of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians ran June 30, and the first rounds of nature-bathing walks at the Bowler snowmobile pavilion happened in late June and late August.
Two dates are still ahead. A final nature-bathing walk is set for Sept. 17 at the Bowler pavilion, paired the same day with a student artwork display near the Shawano Visitor Center on South Main Street. The season closes Sept. 26 with a Family Fun Walk, Run and Ride at the Trail Info Center in downtown Shawano, 620 S. Main Street, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Expect games, a scavenger hunt, food and a 50/50 raffle. It's the kind of event that rewards showing up even if you've walked this trail a hundred times, because the DNR's own trail page still describes 83 miles of glacial farmland, forest and wetland that most people who live along it have only seen in fragments.
Why the Bonduel Trailhead Sits on North Street, Not Main Street
If you've never parked at the Bonduel trailhead, here's what you're looking for: take Highway 117 (Cecil Street) north through the village for about a mile and a half, turn left on North Street, and drive another six-tenths of a mile. That intersection, where North Street meets Depot Street and Flambeau Road, is the trailhead. It sits next to the Lumberyard Bar and Grill and borders the north edge of Cedar Park, Bonduel's 14-acre park with a cedar swamp on one side.
Notice what's missing from those directions. Nothing routes you down Main Street. The rail engineers who laid this corridor in the 1800s built it to move freight efficiently between towns, not to stitch itself into any one town's downtown grid, and the trail inherited that geometry wholesale. Riders heading east from Shawano cross the Wolf River, pass under the trestle north of the village, and keep going toward Zachow without ever seeing Bonduel's storefronts unless they choose to detour in.
That detour is worth taking. Today the village serves trail users with restaurants, convenience stores, a coffee shop and the community park, and the Lumberyard sits close enough to the trailhead that it's become the default stop for riders who don't want to ride the extra loop into town and back.
What the Surface Actually Feels Like, Mile by Mile
Ask three different riders about the Shawano County stretch and you'll get three different answers, and that inconsistency is itself useful information if you're planning a ride rather than just admiring the map. The trail through Shawano County runs on crushed pea gravel rather than the packed crushed limestone used in Brown County, and multi-year rider logs on trail-tracking sites describe the difference bluntly: sections between Bonduel and points east have been reported as overgrown, muddy after rain, or reduced to little more than two dirt ruts, while the same riders consistently praise the Brown County segment toward Pulaski as noticeably better maintained.
Some of that gap comes down to horses. Horseback riding is permitted on the trail only in Shawano County, and riders use the grassy center strip while cyclists and walkers stay on the two outer lanes, a system meant to keep hooves and wheels apart. It works reasonably well, but it also means the Shawano County surface takes more wear than a bike-and-boots-only trail would.
| Segment | Surface | Common rider notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bonduel to Pulaski (Shawano/Brown counties) | Crushed pea gravel (Shawano Co.), crushed limestone (Brown Co.) | Condition drops noticeably crossing into Brown County; Shawano side reported wet, rutted or overgrown in multiple seasons |
| Shawano to Bonduel | Crushed limestone, good condition per Wisconsin Bike Trails' 2026 route notes | Passes through forest and farmland; trestle bridge crossing north of Bonduel |
None of this means the Bonduel stretch is unrideable. It means pack for mud after a wet week, and don't expect the polish of the Brown County miles until you're past the Highway 32 crossing.
The Trail Pass You Actually Need Here
Bonduel sits outside Shawano's city limits, which matters for one practical reason: the City of Shawano waives the state trail pass requirement only within its own city boundary. Everywhere else along the Shawano County stretch, including the Bonduel trailhead, cyclists and horseback riders age 16 and older need a Wisconsin State Trail Pass, which runs $25 for an annual pass or $5 for a single day. Passes are sold at the Shawano city clerk's office, the county clerk's office, and various local merchants. Walkers and hikers don't need one anywhere on the trail. It's an easy detail to miss if you assume the whole county works like downtown Shawano does.
A Quieter Trail Is Still a Trail
There's a version of this story that treats the trail bypassing Bonduel as a loss, as if the village got skipped over. The riders who actually use this stretch tend to describe it differently: fewer crowds than the paved mile through downtown Shawano, more shade, and a straight run past Cedar Park's swamp before the land opens into the farm country toward Zachow. Past falls on this segment have brought color close to peak by early October, according to riders logging their trips on trail-tracking apps, which puts the next few weeks in the window worth watching if that's part of why you ride at all.
Thirty years after the last freight train ran this line, the corridor still does what corridors do best: it connects places without asking them to change shape for it. Bonduel doesn't sit on Main Street's version of the Mountain-Bay Trail. It sits a short drive off it, exactly where the rail grade put it, and that's turned out to be close enough.
If you're thinking about what it's like to actually live along this stretch of Bonduel, not just visit it, Jim Liesner has spent nearly three decades working Shawano County's neighborhoods, lakes and small towns and is happy to talk through what a specific property or block is really like day to day. Reach out for a free consultation whenever you're ready.
