Getting To The Woolly - HWY 8 Road Construction/Detour Advisory

We are just over a week away from the 2016 edition of the Woolly Race.  In order to help get you to the race on time we wanted to give everyone the heads up on a significant detour that you can avoid if you are coming from the Twin Cities.

MN Hwy 8 is being rebuilt just outside of Taylors Falls MN.  If you are coming from the Twin Cities this is likely the road you were going to take.  Rather than getting there and finding yourself detoured back south to cross the St. Croix River at Osceola (Hwy 243 Bridge), we advise you to take the following route.

From the Twin Cities:

• Interstate 35 North
• Hwy 97 East
• Hwy 95 North
• Hwy 243 East (crossing into WI)
• WI Hwy 35 North into St. Croix Falls

This alternate route does take you through a little construction in Forest Lake at the intersection of Hwy 97 and Hwy 61, but the traffic should be minimal and the detour is a few block instead of the 20 miles if you take Hwy 8.

For the curious, HERE is MNDOT's map of their proposed detour.  Again, we don't recommend this route.  It will get you there, but it is going to take extra time.

From the north:
If you are coming from the north, MN Hwy 95 from North Branch will take you right into Taylors Falls and across the St. Croix River into St. Croix Falls without any issues.

From the east:
If you are coming from the east, you also won't be affected by this major detour.