Next Chapter Meetings: On May 14 the Fortune Bay Expeditionary Team will review their trip on the trail through our chapter, and also review their GPS mapping equipment.  Meetings are at 7:00 PM at the Barry Township Hall in Delton on the second Wednesday each month, and are open to the public.  For directions to get there, click here!

At the April 12 work session, we will be working on the western end of the Fort Custer Cemetery property at 9 am.  Meet at 8 am for breakfast at the Lakeside Cafe at 209 S. Webster Street in Augusta. 

Our plans for the May 17 work session will also be to meet at the Lakeside Café, and do further work in that same area.

On March 15, Jerry Pattok, James Heaton, Steve Hicks, Christy Stewart, Larry Hawkins, John Rudnicki, Neil Juhl, and Larry Pio worked to prepare trail on the west end at the Fort Custer Cemetery.  Blazing, clearing of wood, measurements for puncheons, and trail scouting was completed.

A presentation on the North Country Trail and the work of our Chapter will be made to the local Sierra Club on Thursday April 17 at 7pm at the Kalamazoo Valley Community College. This date is a correction, so check your calendars.  Tom Garnett  is also accompanying the Club on a hike from Hall Lake to the south, while the rest of us attend the spring hike.

Barb VanDyken is leading our spring flower / bird watching hike on April 26 at 8:30 am (we want to see the early bird!). The public is also welcome to join us.  Hike location is at the Maher Bird Sanctuary in northern Barry County, on the southwest corner of Wood School Road and 108th Street.  From Hastings, follow M37 northwest to Airport Road, and turn north.  Then turn west on State Road to Wood School Road, and head north.  A check list of plant species seen at the Sanctuary is found on their web site by clicking here:  Maher Sanctuary   See the links under our wildflower presentation below to study up on wildflowers of Michigan.

Dave Cornell is leading a trail adopters workshop on May 10 from 8 am to 10 am at the Kellogg Forest.  This is open to adopters, and anyone who would like to know more about adopting or maintaining trail. 

Remember: National meeting July 31 to August 3 in Marquette at Northern Michigan University.  (Add this to your calendar.)

June 7 is National Trails Day, and a plan is starting to come together.  Joe Higdon and D’Arcy Kelley (and perhaps others) have taken up this task, with more details to be available soon.

Update: We have some members considering co-chairing the Trail Interpretive Project.  The Work Crew is being led by committee for now.  Contact Tom Garnett if you are interested at GARNETTT@trinity-health.org

We need trail adopters for the following segments:

• Chief Noonday Road, north to the last segment on Peet’s Road

• North Barry County Line near Wood School Road,

• and south towards Middleville (several segments)

• Paul Henry Bike Trail; south of Middleville

• Kellogg Biological area; 39th St. to C Ave;

• McKibben to Mullen Road

We will need more adopters for trail we plan to build this year, so please continue to contact Dave Cornell at onestep@mei.net, if you have an interest in adopting a section of the North Country Trail.

Marji Fuller of Hastings, President of Wildflowers Association of Michigan, gave a great presentation on wildflowers last night, featuring wildflower photos by Kathryn Lund Johnson.  If you forgot the names of some of these flowers, check out their web site for about 50 photos to refresh your memory for the spring hike:  www.wildflowersmich.org  Additionally, they have a link to the CHS biology project that has another 147 pictures to make you an expert if you can remember them.  Their website can be found by clicking here.

The West Michigan Chapter hosted a trail maintenance workshop led by Bill Menke of the NCTA last weekend, and this was attended by D’Arcy Kelley, James Heaton and Larry Pio from our chapter. We had a classroom session reviewing maintenance issues, followed by a critique of a segment of the chapter’s trail. On Sunday we cleared fallen trees, and rerouted a section of trail. A highlight of the weekend was the gourmet lunches prepared by chef Stephanie, including Sunday’s in the woods. A second highlight was the snow on the ground and the ice in the trees. Cold but very scenic.

Click here to see an article seen in the Kalamazoo Gazette reporting cougar sightings in Barry County.  This article also recommends checking out this site for more information on cougars in Michigan: www.miwildlife.org   Essentially, cougars have been rumored to be in this area (including down to Battle Creek) for a long time, but they don’t like humans very much, so nobody had any proof.  If you do ever see one, the advice is not to run away. That action looks like their prey.

New Members: The following are new members of our Chapter; please join me in extending a welcome to all of them:

• Robert Jones; Delton

• Judy Kepler; Kalamazoo

• Doug Root; Shelbyville

Gail Speer has gotten our chapter a lot of publicity by starting a routine of reporting chapter events to several newspapers and websites in the area: 7 newspapers (Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Hastings, Albion, Marshall, Homer, Union City & Takonsha), and 2 local web sites for community affairs: TV Channel 3 (Kalamazoo), radio station WKZO).   In the Kalamazoo Gazette, our events are included in the events column on the front page of the Outdoors section on Saturdays.  Thanks a bunch Gail for bringing information on our activities and exposure for our group, to a large new audience.

If you know of any other papers, radio stations, or websites that advertise community events, please let Gail know about it by contacting her at gail_speer@yahoo.com

One of our corporate sponsors is Lee’s Sports, north off the Westnedge exit of I-94, to Kilgore, then one block east. They have 8 weekly Thursday night seminars at 7 pm beginning April 10 at no charge related to hiking and backpacking. To sign up for any session, please call 381-7700. The schedule:

• April 10:  Series Intro and Clothing Systems

• April 17: Packs and Packing

• April 24:  Tents

• May 1:  Bags and Pads

• May 8:  The Outdoor Kitchen

• May 15:  Boots and Feet

• May 22:  Neil Juhl discusses North Country Trail

• May 29:  Leave No Trace

More info next month on canoeing the Kalamazoo River between Albion and Fort Custer in June 13 & 14, and June 20 & 21.

We now have 56 members getting their newsletters via email only, which saves postage (and a little extra time for me for each one every month). Thanks to all of you. If you are getting a copy via the mail, and you wish to get email only, please let me know.

Newsletter Editor:  Larry Pio   nalcoman1@aol.com