Bike, walking trail work planned for St. Joseph County parks

Extended mountain-bike trails, a new walking trail at an undeveloped site, the addition of a boardwalk at a Burr Oak Township parcel and some much-needed improvements at a signature location await St. Joseph County’s Parks and Recreation Department later this year.

Agency director Jaymes MacDonald recently reviewed the department’s to-do list for 2022. It’s clear, he said, there will be little down time once the weather is conducive for work to commence.

Atop the list is the extension of mountain-bike trails at Meyer Broadway Park. MacDonald said it was nearly a year ago when he ordered a bulldozer-like machine called a trail dozer. As its name implies, it clears ground cover and easily creates trails. The specialty item costs about $75,000 and will soon be shipped from its place of manufacture out west.

“It’s made for carving single-track rails through mountains and it’s really efficient in the way it operates, so the plan is to add up to a mile and a half of new trail for the course at Meyer Broadway,” MacDonald said. “The trail will be an extension of what’s already out there.”

MacDonald said work will likely start by Memorial Day and the new trail will possibly be ready by the Fourth of July.

The department received a fair amount of corporate and bike-club sponsorships, which helped offset the cost of the machine. MacDonald, in fact, said the department might be in a position to lease the machine.

“We can use it for more than just building mountain-bike trail, but there’s no equipment like this in Michigan so maybe other bike organizations could lease that out from us at a certain point,” MacDonald said.

Next, MacDonald has his eyes set on the newest addition to the county’s park system. Kettles Park was added to parks and recreation portfolio last year. Located in the southeast corner of Fabius Township, on the east side of U.S. 131 and just south of the M-60 interchange, the park has been scouted and about three miles of trails will be developed.

MacDonald said the same, trail-building machine to be used at Meyer Broadway will perform identical work at Kettles.

“We’re excited about it … it’s just an empty property at the moment, so if people want to go walk around out there, they can, but there’s nothing marked as far as trails,” he said. “Ideally, it’ll be mid-summer before we start work there. But that won’t happen until after we finish up on the mountain-bike trail extension.”

Kettles is a 60-acre parcel with more than 3,500 feet of frontage on the St. Joseph River. MacDonald said he would eventually like to see kayak and canoe access at the park. He said habitat restoration is also on the long-range list of goals there.

Meanwhile, a final section of boardwalk at Plumb Lake County Park is also on the radar. The 126-acre, Burr Oak Township property is a relatively new park for the county.

MacDonald explained the work still needing to be done.

“There’s a final section of boardwalk we want to lay and that would tie in all the trails out there, which would then give us about six miles of trails,” he said. “We’re hoping to squeeze that in … we have about 1,000 feet of boardwalk to lay over some wetlands.”

He said the task is a considerable challenge, made all the more difficult with summer heat and a seemingly infinite number of mosquitoes.

MacDonald said he purchased the lumber a few years ago, a smart move in hindsight considering how lumber costs have risen in the last 18 to 24 months.

“We have a lot of the boardwalk already built, we just have to get in there and get it down,” he added. “Once in place, this would tie two loops together, so it’s kind of an important addition.”

One final task MacDonald mentioned was an upgrade of the bathrooms at Rawson’s King Mill County Park in Leonidas Township. In addition, MacDonald said an old barn at the property will be converted into a pavilion.

The pavilion will be available for rent to host just about any occasion, he noted.

“Right now, there’s pit toilets out there, so we would basically remove that and install these new bathrooms like what we have at Plumb Lake,” MacDonald said. “It’s kind of like a pit toilet, but it has running water and it does not smell. It’s like a normal restroom.”

The project has been on MacDonald’s itinerary for a few years, but a state grant that will cover more than three-quarters of the cost is expected to be in hand soon. At the least, he said, bid documents are being submitted, so there is movement on the undertaking.

He said the county’s portion of the matching grant is about $20,000, which also includes labor-in-kind, as MacDonald and his small staff will perform the work.

MacDonald, who is starting his eighth year as director of the county agency, said the impending work is in addition to the day-to-day needs of the county’s other parks.

He said Sand Lake Park had an impressive amount of traffic last year, and expectations are high for another busy summer at Cade Lake and its campground.

MacDonald said he is proud of the strong reputation the county’s parks enjoy. Their popularity, he said, is not by accident and has come with a considerable amount of work.

“For a county our size, what we have to offer is pretty much unrivaled,” he said. “We’ve had strong support from the county commission through the years and that commitment is evident based on what you see today.”

The county has eight actual parks and owns about two dozen properties. The two-person staff, including MacDonald, hires about eight part-time employees for seasonal help.

This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: St. Joseph County Parks and Recreation to improve bike, walking trails