MICHIGAN – Marquee locations on the Hiawatha National Forest are now safer and more accessible for visitors thanks to some hardworking kids. Several YouthWorks crews spent the summer making critical improvements to popular recreation areas, including the Au Train River, Bruno’s Run and Valley Spur. Crew members also increased the sustainability of trails and other recreation areas to provide for excellent experiences now and into the future.

Crews were made up of young people with various backgrounds from across Michigan, including Traverse City, Detroit, Marquette and Calumet.  

One project involved hauling boardwalk material at Bruno’s Run Trail and construction to re-route a section of the trail. Bruno Run Trail offers 11 miles for hiking and mountain biking. The trail winds its way past a host of small lakes etched in a relatively young glacial plain. Storms a few years ago caused portions of the trail to be underwater. Work to re-route a part of the trail addressed this by constructing it on higher ground.

At the popular Valley Spur Single Track Mountain Bike Trail, a crew created one mile of additional mountain bike trail. This involved a contractor using a mini excavator, and then the crew removing roots and rocks by hand. This helped in meeting a goal of the Munising Trail Network Partnership, which is another 12-mile loop of mountain biking trail within Valley Spur.

Crews helped make a section of the Bay de Noc Grand Island National Recreation Trail more sustainable, by re-routing two segments of the trail that had been impacted by erosion. Though primarily a horse trail, visitors can also hike and bike.

And, a crew did some bench cutting for a trail reroute on a section of the Munising/Au trail portion of the North Country National Scenic Trail.

Conservation and service have always been core values for the USDA Forest Service. Through these projects, Hiawatha employees provided training and valuable experiences to these young people and it had a profound effect. For some of them, they had an opportunity to get outdoors, for others it awakened their sense of adventure with wanting to come back and mountain bike on the trail they helped build, and for others, it opened a world of possibility with careers in the Forest Service.

The Forest is grateful for the crews that were able to accomplish so much this summer and part of that success was due to staff work ahead of time to make these projects NEPA-ready and good to go.

Mark Bender, Recreation Tech Trails and Wilderness on the Munising Ranger District, oversaw most of the crews this summer. Bender said he is very appreciative of the critical operations that took place and looks forward to welcoming additional crews, as early as this fall if possible, to complete more of the mountain bike trail at Bruno’s run. “Working with YouthWorks crews is a win/win for the participants and the Forest Service.”