Ghost towns, old homesteads, abandoned fields and orchards, and, of course, lots of scenic views are just some of the things you will see on two new guided mountain bike tours offered at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore this summer.
While I wouldn't call either of the rides a walk in the park, they are very doable for just about all mountain bikers. Several cyclists on both of the rides last week -- myself included -- ended up walking up the last part of a good uphill climb on each ride. Others rode up the hill, so it was a mixed bag of riders.
There were about as many hybrid-tired mountain bikes on each ride as true fat-tired mountain bikes. One woman, on a hybrid bike, rode the longer 10-mile tour with a little dog in a basket mounted on her handle bars.
The two tours, on opposite ends of the park, are ranger guided, but Ryan Locke, the guide, is actually employed with the National Park Foundation and not the National Park Service. It's part of the new direction Sleeping Bear is going, according to Locke.
"A few years ago the park service, following an old plan, tried to make Sleeping Bear a wilderness area, and that plan was not popular with local residents or park visitors," he said. "They backed off that concept and are now preserving the old homesteads, clearing the fields and making it a historic district.
"With the new direction Sleeping Bear was one of the parks selected by the National Park Foundation and Ford Motor Company to promote alternative transportation methods within the park. That's where I come in. We will be offering six guided bike tours every week through the middle of August. It's free. Just show up for the ride at the designated time."
This past week was the start of the tours, and both were well attended with 12 to 16 riders on each tour.
The first tour I rode on was through the 3,500-acre Port Oneida Rural Historic District, which, according to Locke, is the largest of its kind in the entire nation. You ride the backroads exploring the old farm homesteads and where Port Oneida once stood with its massive dock for refueling the steamers that plied Lake Michigan around the turn-of-the-last-century.
It sticks to mostly dirt roads with a little bit of pavement in between. The ride we took was nearly seven miles and could have been a little longer with an optional climb to the top of Pyramid Point to view a couple of old homesteads on top of the Point. All 12 on that tour declined the option. It's a tough climb. We were just a little under two hours on that tour.
The second tour, which starts just south of Empire, includes backroads, farms, forests, ghost towns and even a little two-tracking. It's also the longer tour, a little over 10 miles round-trip and took about two hours.
You start at the old school house just off M-22 a little less than two miles south of Empire and ride over to the old ghost town of Aral, which is located along Esch Road and Otter Creek. Along the way you pass through an old maple and beech forest where they once tapped 8,000 sugar maples. We stood on the spot where an infamous 1889 double murder took place in the ghost town, which started the decline of the little lumbering community that disappeared in the early 1900s.
You even ride along the old stage coach road -- now a two-track -- that ran south between Otter Lake and Lake Michigan learning what the land looked like when the first settlers came to the area over 150 years ago.
I applaud the National Park Service for offering the guided tours. I've always thought there were probably good rides at Sleeping Bear, but in the past you didn't get much encouragement for mountain biking in the park. There weren't any tours, even self-guided ones, that I can recall being offered in the past. You were on your own, and, with all trails being off-limits, routes weren't easy to figure out.
The rides are being offered Wednesday through Saturday every week now through mid-August. The Port Oneida ride meets in a small picnic area at the corner of Basch Road and M -22 on Wednesdays at 5 p.m., Fridays at 11 a.m. and Saturdays at 5 p.m. The tour south of Empire meets Thursdays at 11 a.m., Fridays at 5 p.m. and Saturdays at 11 a.m. No sign up is required and it's a free tour. Just show up and be ready to ride. Helmets are required. Riders must be at least 11 years of age.
You can also go online at nps.gov/slbe/ to check out all of the other free guided hikes and programs that Sleeping Bear Dunes offers throughout the summer. It's an impressive list. Several outings, in addition to the bike rides, are listed for every day of the week. Some are historical but many offer hikes into little seen portions of the park.
There's more to Sleeping Bear Dunes than meets the eye, at least from the paved road. Get out, take a guided hike or a mountain bike tour and discover this wonderful, old cultural landscape and how settlers existed here when they first arrived in the area.
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