After 15 years of planning and fundraising, the Charlevoix Lake to Lake Multi-Use Trail is at long last open to the public.
“The big miracle is we had the city, township, county and (local) industry together, and that’s pretty awesome,” said JoAnne Beemon, secretary of Water and Air Team Charlevoix and member of the trail committee. “All of those different interests came together around one table and it’s just so exciting. The trail is outside of the city and township, and yet the city took a major role in getting grants. I hope it paves a path in the future of everyone working together for common goals.”
At the turn of the century, a rail spur was constructed to bring equipment and building materials from southern Michigan to Medusa Cement on the shore of Lake Michigan. In 2001, a proposal was brought before Charlevoix to timber and sell a 10-acre parcel on M-66, which Beemon saw as an opportunity for a future trailhead.
She soon began organizing community members to urge the City of Charlevoix to consider the value of the parcel for future recreation and trail development. Dean Davenport, director of the Charlevoix County Junior Golf Association, was one of her first recruits and became the publicist for the cause.
“We have a place on the lake and I was watching the boats in waist-deep water when I see this gal coming towards me yelling my name,” Davenport recalled. “She pulled up her dress and waded out in the water and showed me this plot of land and said ‘the city is trying to sell this, we need to stop them. I asked what I could do and we started talking about it right away.’”
A Charlevoix Lake to Lake Multi-Use Trail Committee was assembled with members of the Charlevoix East Jordan Snowmobile Trails Council, Charlevoix County Land Conservancy, St. Marys Cement, representatives of local government and others. St. Marys donated land on the Medusa spur to the city for development.
The Charlevoix County Board of Commissioners formally supported the trail initiative in 2003, though it would take another 12 years of overcoming setbacks to make the plans a reality.
“It was four or five years of meetings and then getting one step forward and one back,” Davenport said. “The thing that hurt us was that as soon as we were close with Medusa, the company was sold, and when we started working with those people and became close with them, it was sold again to St. Marys. If someone wants to know why we took so long, basically every time we got close with the cement company they would sell.”
Community support pushed city leaders to begin securing funding for the project. To date, the project has covered a majority of the $583,000 project cost from grants. Grants include the Federal Transportation Enhancement grant for $314,000, $14,500 from The Charelvoix County Community Foundation, $20,000 from The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and $20,000 from The Oleson Foundation. The city and township also submitted a joint application for a $20,000 grant recently.
“There were a lot of people that wanted it to happen a long time ago, but there was a lack of political support for it,” Spencer said. “It’s a hard thing to get these trails down, there’s funding issues and people have different opinions on it. To finally see it come to fruition, I know everyone who has been involved is just extremely thrilled to see this happen and be finally built.”
Charlevoix City Planner Mike Spencer said the Lake to Lake Trail Committee plans to have an opening kickoff some time in July to celebrate the opening of the trail.
The trail runs west from Ferry Beach, crossing M-66 and along U.S.-31 to connect with Fisherman’s Island State Park and the Little Traverse Wheelway through downtown Charlevoix. The trail is around five miles long. Parts of the previous trail were used by the Charlevoix Snowmobile Club and high school cross country teams, members of which were also involved in the project.
“We’re happy we’ve gotten a lot of grant money for the project and we hope this is a base for future connections for Charlevoix and the Little Traverse Wheelway with Traverse City, as well,” Spencer said. “This is part of a regional effort to become a more bike and trail-friendly area.”
The trail is also an effort to develop more opportunity for outdoor activities in Charlevoix.
Beemon said plans to continue the trail to connect with southern wheelways is up in the air, but they have been in contact with organizations to begin planning soon.
The trail connections make Fisherman’s Island State Park more accessible to cyclists who used to have to travel along the busy U.S. 31 highway to enter the park from Charlevoix.
“U.S. 31 was too dangerous, now a 12- or 14-year-old can take a ride out and enjoy the day with their family, so we’re looking forward to that,” Beemon said.
Construction on the trail is finished, though dirt along the limestone path is being hydroseeded to regrow grass in areas where the grass was torn up and places the trail had to be regraded.
