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An Amazing Trail in a Park Known for Great Trails  

By Jim DuFresne
The 25^th annual National Public Lands Day will be staged on Sept. 22 this year and will be celebrated with a volunteer work-bee at the new Kettles Trail.

Never heard of National Public Lands Day? Or the Kettles Trail? You’re forgiven as both are relatively obscured but maybe not for long.  

Established in 1994 and held annually on the fourth Saturday in September, National Public Lands Day is a celebration of public land wrapped around what organizers claim is the nation's largest single-day volunteer effort.   

We have much to celebrate on National Public Lands Day. According to data from the United Nations Environment Programme, the United States has 25,800 protected areas that covered 499,800 square miles or 14 percent of the country. Or, to put it in even more mind-boggling terms, this represents one-tenth of the protected land area of the world. They range for small township parks to vast wilderness areas in Alaska like the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge at almost 20 million acres. These are public places where you can hike, bike, climb, fish, swim, picnic on a Sunday afternoon or explore for weeks at a time on foot or by paddle.

The National Park Service oversees a vast amount of our public land and as part of the celebration will be offering free one-day admission to 140 national parks, including Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain, Everglades and our own Isle Royale National Park. There will also be almost 800 volunteer events that will take place on Sept. 22, including seven in Michigan.

Among them is a work-bee for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore’s new Kettles Trail from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. No reservations are needed for the event, interested volunteers should plan on meeting at the trailhead parking lot on Baatz Road, near its intersection with Fritz Road east of Empire.

Those who show up and don a pair of work gloves for a few hours will earn a free one-day entrance pass to any national park that is good for a year. But perhaps even more rewarding will be experiencing a new trail before it’s officially dedicated.

And the Kettles Trail is worth experiencing and remembering. There is not another trail like it in Sleeping Bear Dunes.

Trail Guide 
Click on the map to the right to view a larger version or print.

There is a spot along the Kettles Trail where from the narrow crest of a ridge you can look into the sharp conical depression of a kettle left behind by glaciers thousands of years ago. On the other side of the ridge the slope is so steep you can’t see the bottom.  And in November or later, the grayish silhouettes of even higher ridges rise all around you.

It looks like a slice of the western Upper Peninsula, but it’s not. The trail is in the heart of the Leelanau Peninsula, in the Bow Lakes area of Sleeping Bear Dunes Natural Lakeshore, a park known for sand dunes and beaches.

Who would have guessed that in this region of vineyards, farm stands and quaint little towns, there is a place so rugged and so remote? And so full of kettles.

A kettle is fluvioglacial landform, the result of blocks of ice splitting off from the front of a receding glacier and then buried by glacial outwash. When the ice melts a sharp-sided hole appears.  An area with numerous kettles results in a rugged topography, a jumbled array of ridges, mounds and potholes.

There are at least a dozen kettles in the area that the Kettles Trail traverses, a 500-acre tract 5 miles southeast of Glen Lake. Other than three isolated kettles on North Manitou Island, this is the only place in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore where kettles, pothole lakes and kettle bogs exist.

The geographical oddities are so rare that the park’s boundary was revised in 1982 to include the 1,000-acre Bow Lakes area, even though only the southern half is currently federal land. In 2009, a small parking lot, hiking trail and interpretive information was included in the park’s General Management Plan. Trail construction is currently underway but much of the system has already been completed by volunteers and plans call for an official dedication next spring.

A proposed trailhead at the corner of Baatz and Fritz Roads would provide access to 2.4 miles of trail. Because some backtracking is required, the entire Kettles Trail is a hike of 3.6 miles, with the southern portion moderate in difficulty and the northern half more challenging.

In the spring this area is also one of the best in the national lakeshore to observe wildflowers. In the winter the high elevation creates good conditions for lake-effect snow while the wide trails, most of them old two-tracks, makes the area an excellent destination for snowshoers or backcountry skiers.

Just watch out for those kettles.

Facilities 

When finished Kettles Trail will be designated for foot travel only, no mountain bikes allowed. The first section, from the Baatz Road trailhead to an overlook with an interpretive sign at the top of one of the glacial kettles, will be universally accessible. 

Getting There 

From M-72, head north on County Road 669 and in 2 miles turn west on Baatz Road. The trailhead is reached in 2.2 miles on the north side of the road.

Additional Information 

For an update on the trail, stop by or contact the Philip Hart Visitor Center (231-326-5134). For travel information contact Traverse City Tourism (800-872-8377; www.traversecity.com).