I. THE HISTORIC IRON BRIDGE TRAIL
Our main endeavor for 2008 came that much closer to fruition. In
2007, Tom Garnett breathed new life into the concept of a trail along a
Kalamazoo River greenway from Battle Creek to Homer in southern Calhoun County.
With a great deal of time and effort on the part of Tom, ably assisted by Ron
Sootsman, the Calhoun County Trail Alliance was born, with the approval of the
Calhoun County Board of Commissioners and the Parks and Recreation Division of
the Calhoun County Road Commission. A Board of Directors was established and a
grant proposal was submitted to MDOT for Phase One of Segment One of what will
come to be the Historic Iron Bridge Trail, a multi use trail from the eastern
terminus of the Linear Park in Battle Creek to the village trail system in
Homer, passing through and utilizing the municipal trails in the cities of
Marshall and Albion. Of course, alongside or on the Historic Iron Bridge Trail
will be the North Country National Scenic Trail.
II.
TRAIL WORK
Trail Maintenance continued with our monthly workdays. No new
trail was established in 2008, but we have a lot of established trail to
maintain and improve. The segment of trail through the Kellogg Biological
Station was rerouted and informational kiosks which we build and share with KBS
were placed for the public. We are hoping for new “kissing gates” to replace our
traditional stiles at KBS. We greatly appreciate the able assistance and
excitement of Gwen Pearson, the Assistant Director of the biologic station, in
promotion the trail and our association.
Charlie
Krammin, long time trail blazer for the Chief Noonday Chapter, without whom much
of our trail on the ground wouldn’t exist, mapped out a new reroute for a
segment of the trail that passes through the Yankee Springs Recreation Area.
This reroute, if it comes to fruition, will move the trail off the horseman’s
trail and move it through a beautiful new area of the recreation area. Working
with Andru Jevicks, the Assistant Director of the YSRA, Charlie presented the
route to Michigan DNR officials from Lansing in whose hands lies the ultimate
fate of the reroute. Because of the current moratorium on new trail building in
Lansing, we are anxiously waiting to see if we’ll be breaking trail in the
Spring.
Benching, erosion barriers and wetlands work continued in the
Ott Preserve, Kimball Pines and the National cemetery properties in our ongoing
relations with the beavers (right).
We hosted a volunteer group from Bear Naked Granola, a division
of Kellogg’s/Kashi spearheaded by Chris Sweeney of the CNC (left). A
kiosk that was battle scarred from being a frequent target of frustrated hunters
was moved and blazing and trail cleanup was performed in the Middleville State
Game Area.
We
can never give to much credit to our trail adopters. Once again we had an
awesome year in which our adopters did basic maintenance kept us informed of
major projects that needed trail crew efforts and, of course, maintaining good
relations with our land owners.
III. GETTING THE WORD OUT
In
Association with the Friends of the Hastings Public Library, Dave Cornell,
Mick
Hawkins, Charlie Krammin and Jerry Pattok posed for November 2009 in the
Friend’s Calendar wearing their 500 hour shirts with trail tools and a
beautifully restored 1964 custom cab truck.
In June we worked with the local Audubon Society for our Trails
Day activity promoting the Cerulean Warbler Fest, the cerulean warbler being an
endangered bird that thrives in our local forests and woodlands. We guided
birders on hikes and staffed an informational booth at the Fest Headquarters at
Gun Lake State Park.
August
found us, once again, manning our traditional booth at the Hastings SummerFest
where we meet a lot of old friends and make many new ones for the trail.
We continue to work with other local trail groups to promote
hiking in the tri-county area as evidenced by the Historic Iron Bridge Trail
work. Larry Pio has been meeting regularly with the Thornapple Trail Association
with whom we share a segment of the Paul Henry Trail and we promote their
Volksmarch program which regularly utilizes the NCNST.
In
the last year we’ve greatly expanded our hiking program in an effort to promote
the trail and our chapter to those who hike. We now have monthly hike which we
promote through our web site and our “Yahoo Group”, a widely used site that
keeps people up to date on chapter activities. Our hikes have, in general, been
well attended with a couple of memorable exceptions: the “monsoon walk” and the
“blizzard walk”. We are proud to say that our “hikemeisters”, Charlie Krammin
and Joe Higdon were there to lead a hike for anyone who might have showed up.
Mick Hawkins and Ron Sootsman undertook a major project which
neared completion at the end of 2008
As always, we proudly present our CNC Web Page which puts the
NCNST in front of an amazing number of people with high quality and up to date
information about what is going on in our chapter and activities sponsored by
our friends in the area. We can’t thank Mick Hawkins too much for his
outstanding work maintaining the Web site and our Yahoo group.
My special thanks to that “hard core” group that gets things
done in the Chief Noonday Chapter. I feel very blessed with such a great group
of volunteers.
