Heritage Trail expands north; full addition delayed until August
From staff reports
The good news: the popular Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail has expanded and opened its fourth leg, which will eventually run 3.8 miles east from Port Oneida to Bohemian Road and Good Harbor Bay, bringing the trail total to 17 miles. (It currently starts just north of Empire and runs to the Sleeping Bear Dune Climb, and through Glen Arbor to Port Oneida) A ribbon cutting for the addition will take place Friday, June 24, at 11 a.m. at Port Oneida.
The bad news: the trail addition is only partly complete. The construction of a boardwalk over the southern shore of Narada Lake (about halfway between Port Oneida and Bohemian) is far behind schedule, and work won’t resume on the bridge until July 5. Lee Jameson, facilities manager at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore estimates that the trail will be complete by August 1. Additional helical piles were needed in the wetland area, and the boardwalk’s frame will rest on a fabricated metal cap on top of those piles. The metal cap is expected to be manufactured and delivered by July Fourth weekend.
The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore had used Elmers as its prime contractor for previous legs of the Heritage Trail, but this time it worked with DJ Mcquestion & Sons, which is based in Le Roy, Mich. (Stay tuned for updates on Leg 4 of the trail on our website, GlenArbor.com.)
Despite the temporary setback, the Heritage Trail has enjoyed immense popularity since it opened in June 2012. According to Pam Darling, development director for TART Trails (which helps raise funds for the trail), users surveyed in 2015 came from not just Michigan but Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, California, Florida, Pennsylvania and Canada; the trail had over 60,000 visits last year (and would have attracted more were it not for the August 2 storm that shut the trail for over a week); in 2014 the figure was 62,500; in 2012 and 2013 the trail had an estimated 50,000 visits each year.
Eighty percent of the trail users in 2015 were cyclists; 66 percent of trail users were with family and 25 percent were with friends; 70 percent indicated they were using the trail for recreation and 30 percent for exercise; 20 percent of respondents planned to use the trail for an hour and 74 percent planned to use it for two or more hours; 56 percent of trail users surveyed resided more than 50 miles away; 50 percent of the trail users planned to spend time at the Sleeping Bear Dune Climb, and the trail users surveyed were split equally between men and women.
