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HOT ISSUES FOR OUR CHAPTERS |
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Trail Council Meeting,
April 28, 2007 Lowell, MI noon
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Chief Baw Beese
Recently partnered with the village of Litchfield to
incorporate trail maintained by the Rotary Club. It may include a campsite! |
Chief Noonday
Working on an interpretive project to identify important and interesting features along their segment. |
Western Michigan
Working on
connectors to the Schoolhouse and
Loda Lake |
Spirit of the Woods
Purchasing a tool
trailer with CSC funds |
Grand Traverse Hikers
Reroute of trail away from Shore-to-Shore Trail. This is a major improvement for the NCT! |
Tittabawassee
Working on a
document to guide others to create
"Ridge Runner" programs to educate trail users. |
Harbor Springs
Planning more group hikes for 2006- see newsletters |
HELPING AND LEARNING
FROM OUR
SISTER CHAPTERS! |
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Chapter Newsletters
Chief Baw Beese not available
Chief Noonday current issue
Western Michigan Jan 2006
Spirit of the Woods Oct 2007
Grand Traverse Hikers June 2007
Tittabawassee not available
Harbor Springs Jan 2006
Staff and Key Volunteers
Clare Cain Director of Trail Management
John Leinen NCTA Board President
Joan Young LP Trail Coordinator
Lyle Bialk Trail Council Chair
Steve Vear Chief Baw Beese President
Larry Hawkins Chief Noonday President
Chuck Vanette Western Michigan Pres
Richard Krieger Spirit of the Woods Pres
John Heiam Grand Traverse Hikers Pres
Jerry Allen Tittabawassee President
Jerry Keeney Harbor Springs President
Minutes of Meetings
November 2005 a Word document
April 2005 a Word document
October 2004 a Word document
October 2004 Update a Word document
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Lyle Bialk of the Tittabawassee Chapter has agreed to take on Trail Council Chair. Lyle says:
Hello Fellow Hikers and Trail Lovers,
This will be my first venture into the political realm of trail work. My background is as an extensive backpacker who started feeling guilty about using the trails and not doing much to help build and maintain them. So in 1994, or there abouts, I contacted Arden Johnson to volunteer to do what I could in maintaining a portion of NCT. He strongly hinted that the Jordon River section was an area that saw a lot of use, but not enough maintenance. So I got my feet wet as a volunteer maintainer.
Within a couple of years the Tittabawassee Chapter came into being and through some intital confusion I ended up getting a new section of trail to take care of. Since most of our members live a long way from their sections of trail, we have developed a very cooperative method of looking after "our trail", often helping each other out in a true group effort - the best way to accomplish our goals and fun too. Although I'm still a hiker at heart, maintaining and building trails has given me a new way to enjoy these treasures.
I'm currently the secretary/treasurer of the Tittabawassee Chapter. I am also fairly active with the American Hiking Society. I've served as their Ambassador at various Trails Day and Winter Trails Day events here in Michigan and also participate in their Volunteer Vacations as often as possible. I've worked with Joan Young on a couple of occasions and look forward to meeting many of you and becoming more involved in this work for the NCT.
Very Sincerely,
Lyle Bialk
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NCTA has made some great changes in 2005. There is a new Director of Trail Management, and the first Regional Coordinator (alas for us, the UP and Wisconsin get Bill Menke's great expertise). I am limping along, doing very little in the role of Volunteer Lower Peninsula Trail Coordinator. That said, I put in 147 hours of time in this capacity in 2005, which only goes to show how much time would be required to do the job well!
Nevertheless, in 2005, I have done the following:
- Kept in touch with chapters via email / phone
- Maintained this Lower Michigan Hub web page which is seeing more use
- Continued work on a personal hiking passport for individuals to keep track of their Lower Michigan miles with awards for partial and final completion of the NCT through this Peninsula. I hope to have it ready for this hiking season
- Visited Lansing with Dick Naparala of the Grand Traverse Hikers to meet with the DNR. They did approve a re-route of the NCT off the Shore to Shore horse trail!
- Attended the Triad meeting in Wisconsin in October
- All Michigan DNR web listings of the North Country Trail in their on-line database except state parks are up to date
- Provided standard language to be included in future chapter brochures
- Organized the Michigan section of the Teddy Keizer Duofold 50/50 Challenge Hike in the Manistee National Forest. You all did us proud with 31 people coming, and 7 of you hiking the entire 50k with Teddy. No other state supported him so much, and he was mightily impressed with the NCT!
-- Joan Young
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