Trails in the News - Press Clipping Files

10/18/2006

Preliminary Work Underway to Improve Gaylord to Mackinaw City Trail

DNR, groomers are busy working on old railroad grade

By RICH ADAMS
Tribune Editor
Cheboygan Tribune

TOPINABEE - There was a flurry of activity as a state-mandated deadline to remove items from a soon-to-be-opened snowmobile trail arrived on Thursday.

Michigan Department of Natural Resources crews continued to work on a drainage ditch adjacent to the so-called West Mullett Lake trail in Topinabee, while up the road landowners along the trail removed docks, benches and other items from near the former railroad grade.

The DNR sent certified letters to all landowners along the trail from Cheboygan to Gaylord informing them that any property trespassing on the trail would be ticketed or confiscated, or the landowners would face a civil suit.

The trail, which has been the subject of debate for a decade, was ordered opened to snowmobilers by DNR Director Rebecca Humphries in September following a decade of being off limits to all motorized vehicles. The change was made after efforts to find an alternate route to link Cheboygan to Gaylord failed.

Snowmobiles will be allowed on the trail beginning Dec. 1, said DNR officials.

In the meantime, trail grooming clubs such as the Cheboygan Trailblazers and Indian River Grooming Club are cutting brush and making the trails ready for the winter recreation season.

DNR crews are assisting, and on Thursday a crew was on the northern end of Topinabee at Lakeshore Drive clearing out a drainage ditch that was started by the railroad, but has been ignored for at least 30 years. A piece of heavy machinery was working to clear a culvert so that water could flow beneath the street.

“We're just cleaning out debris,” said John Lange, a DNR fire officer who was overseeing the project. “We are finding everything from logs and rocks and cement.”

Lange pointed out one area where standing water was held back by a multi-branched willow tree growing in the middle of the ditch. The tree had grown at least 20 feet tall.

“There hasn't been much maintenance of this ditch in 30 or 40 years,” Lange said. “There's a lot of standing water trapped by trees and debris. We cut down a few oaks that we estimated had been growing in the middle of the ditch for at least 30 years.”

Indian River Contractors Inc. was helping clear off the path and was contracted to do grading and gravelling work on the trail to help prepare it for snowmobilers. And bids were expected to be accepted yet this fall on work to improve the railroad bridge over Mullett Creek.

He said the bridge over the small creek was built by the railroad using anything available to form the walls of the bridge.

“We plan to replace the sides with proper barriers and to stabilize the abutments,” Lange said, noting that the bidding process is under way.

Despite the heated debate earlier this year on opening the 12-mile stretch of lakeside trail, Lange said he has not heard disparaging remarks during the work this fall.

“I have heard no negative comments,” Lange said. “We've been out here at least a week now and all we've heard are positive comments.”

DNR, groomers are busy working on old railroad grade.

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