By Stewart A. McFerran
Last August, Freshwater Reporter spoke to two Manistee County Planning Department employees inside their booth at the Copemish Heritage Festival. The pair’s enthusiasm for a SMARTrails project, which would create new trails inside the county and connect them with existing trails, was apparent. At the time, surveys were taken for public reaction and input. We also spoke to Robert “Rob” Carson, Manistee County Planning Director, about the types of trail uses identified in the plan.
We touched base with Carson last month for an update. Progress has slowed, due to COVID-19, but enthusiasm for the project has not. We spoke about the Recreation Commission that was established in June 2019, and its plan to develop trails in Manistee County, known as SMARTrails. The new trails would link Manistee to the adjacent counties of Benzie, Mason and Wexford and connect to established trails between communities.
The old railroad grades that crisscross Manistee County are mostly owned by the state and will serve as a backbone for these trails. (These are the “rails” in the SMARTrails name.) As a result, the plan has attracted the attention of state officials.
“We can connect three State Parks and several State Forest Campgrounds on one series of trails,” Carson explained.
This would be a huge boon to bicyclists and hikers planning overnight camping trips.
The commission and its mission
The Manistee Recreation Commission has ten members, one from the Planning Board, another from the Road Commission, the Drain Commissioner and a county commissioner. The other six “at large” seats have been filled.
“We had a formal board recognized,” Carson said. “With that, one of the primary focuses is the development of trails. The primary routes we looked at were on already existing railroad corridors that were abandoned in the 19th century. They would be hiking and biking trails in the warm months and in winter they would be snowmobile trails.
“The DNR made strong recommendations to have multi-use trails,” he added. It broadens the spectrum of the type of grants we are able to write.”
Meanwhile, Carson identified three grants received for trail plan development from:
- Northern Michigan Health Coalition, used to compensate staff time for the development of the plan;
- Manistee LiveWell Group, which assists with plan development and printing costs; and
- Manistee County Community Foundation, which assists with the formation of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit “Friends of SMARTrails,” planning document route engineering, plan production and printing, and publication/outreach.
Multi partners, multi uses
Carson said the commission is considering hard-surface pathways 12-14 feet wide.
“Those trails would intersect the North Country Trail and some of other trails that are already existing,” he explained.
The Big M trail and the Marzinksi horse trails are certainly candidates to be linked.
“What would work,” Carson began, “is a regional trail connection from the City of Manistee towards Wellston and then continuing on towards Caberfae (ski area) and the Cadillac area.”
Carson said Mark Coe, of the Benzie-Manistee Snowbirds, has been a great partner in the effort to link trails. The Snowbirds’ clubhouse is in Kaleva and is open to riders of snow machines every Saturday in January and February. The clubhouse acts as a warming hut – offering free hot chocolate, coffee, tea and cookies to trail riders.
“They have a ton of experience obtaining easements from private landowners and working with the various departments of the State of Michigan,” Carson said, of the Snowbirds.
The club has 162 miles of groomed trails that link to Wellston Winter Trails and others. Coe has helped to direct the placement of some of the routes in this new Manistee trail planning effort.
“We envision a route that is wide enough and safe enough that you could put your children with training wheels on a bike and feel safe,” Carson explained. “We are going to be submitting grants here over the next few years to develop the priority routes extending the Betsie Valley Trail into Manistee County, both toward Mesick and toward the City of Manistee.”
Carson continued: “The railroad corridor that goes from the City of Manistee up through Thompsonville heads to Interlochen. The thought was … you get the Betsie Valley Trail extended down through Manistee from Thompsonville into Kaleva and towards the City of Manistee. You connect Healy Lake State Forest campground. And the other spur of the trail, that goes through Copemish to Mesick and Yuma, connects Cadillac to the White Pine Trail.”
This would connect to Mitchell State Park.
One series of trails would connect Orchard Beach State Park with a spur route. You could hop on a bike and ride 30 miles between communities. There is a campground on Nine Mile Road in Kaleva, and within the Pere Marquette State Forest you are allowed to camp anywhere, as long as it is not within 300 feet of water.
Orchard Beach State Park has a trail system for hiking and cross-country skiing. Mitchell State Park on Lake Cadillac has a Heritage Nature Trail. Interlochen State Park has a small nature trail but more than 400 campsites. The envisioned routes would connect these campgrounds.
“That’s getting more use of our parks and the parks would be interconnected,” Carson said.
The Recreation Commission will be dealing with 20 units of government as the trail crisscrosses Manistee County. Add other counties and the State of Michigan and the path to trail completion becomes steep. The cost per mile of trail would be $80,000-$125,000.
Yet, models for this type of regional trail promise economic development. It is expected that the cost of building trails that connect recreation sites in Manistee County would pay for themselves in short order. Communities such as Thompsonville and Kaleva might welcome the economic boost that travelers along a trail could bring. While bicyclists carry little, most carry a smartphone and a credit card, or at least stuff a twenty in their spandex shorts.
The commission hopes to gain support for this effort from all quarters, including the shoreline communities of Onekama and Arcadia.
“The goal would be to bring a trail up the coastline, but there is so much private property between Onekama and Frankfort that we have to be very tactful in our approach in discussions with landowners,” Carson explained. “We don’t want to turn anyone off.”
“Once the COVID restrictions are lifted and we are in the clear, we will be working with local communities on establishing priority routes through their communities to determine where they would like to see the trail go.”
Carson said a draft of the Manistee Lake Area Non-Motorized Trail Plan document “will be moving through the public review and adoption phases over the next couple of months.”
