Find the top rated horseback riding trails in Michigan, whether you're looking for an easy short horseback riding trail or a long horseback riding trail, you'll find what you're looking for. Click on a horseback riding trail below to find trail descriptions, trail maps, photos, and reviews.
Rode this morning in the semi-cloudy drizzle and it was really great; the trail did not at all get too soft, and the rain helped to keep the dust down. Very well-maintained trail is a pleasure to ride. I went from Haggerty to the Telegraph Rd overpass and back again. Always a pleasure to ride this one.
I start my ride in Alma at the College. It is one of my favorite trails as I drive 37 miles just to ride it. It goes through a ghost town and you cross a few bridges along the way. My only complaint is I wish there were mile markers along the way. If your thirsty along the way stop in at the Ghost Town Saloon in Elwell!
Love this trail!
HOWEVER, on Saturday mornings, there is no parking at the Gaylord trail head. The soccer activities at the park take all parking for several hours.
ALSO, the soccer participants actually park on the trail, totally blocking it.
Unfortunately, this weekend (9/23), while attempting to navigate around parked cars on the trail, I got hung up in the sand and fell. Bent my derailleur and bloodied up my leg!
I informed the police that the trail was blocked. My suspicions are it did little good.
Love this trail!!!
The whole family enjoyed this M186 perimeter trail around Mackinaw Island. All assortment of bikes are available for rent on the island from tandem to tag-alongs (for the kids) and amigo electric carts for the elderly. Riding this perimeter trail was the highlight of our visit to the island.
This is a great trail but it is really deteriorating quickly. From East Park west to Charlevoix it is so beat up that it is basically disgusting to ride on my handcycle or on any type of recumbent three wheel type of bike. The curb cuts are atrocious and if you want to bend a wheel or blow a tire this is the trail for you. Even the new extension up to Alanson which is only 3 seasons old is getting really, really bumpy due to the fact that when it was built the tree roots were not cleared deep enough. The section from downtown Petoskey to East Park is the only smooth and properly maintained part of the trail albeit it now has some tree root and cracking issues too. The section from the newly purchased $300,000.00 trail office that houses the council director who has a huge salary for what he does, north to Harbor Springs has some deterioration and curb cut issues too. All and all this could be Michigan's best trail if it had built and maintained properly. Its a shame that there are few fundraising events or even donation boxes along this very heavily used trail so money could be raised to fix the many issues. Its also unfortunate that all the chiefs on the council never answer emails or complaints relating to the many, many problems that they seem to ignore.
My husband and I love riding trails with our hybrid bikes. We discovered a section of the Polly Ann Trail in Imlay City. When we came to the road near the high school, the rest of the trail was overgrown with weeds, grass, and trees. We decided the check out the other end of the paved section to discover the rest is very hard to find. If it continues on the road, it is full of chuck pits. How in the world can they boast the length of this trail and claim it is paved, asphalt, and stone?!?! It is past time to properly surface and mark the rest of it.
Now that I have done this trail two years in a row, both coincidentally on labor day weekend, I feel like I can write a real review.
110 miles on this trail in 8 hours in 2016, and 137 miles in 10 hours 2017.
I know the average trail user will likely be riding under 50 miles, this review is aimed more for crazy endurance riders.
If you are looking for an intense challenge of both mental and physical toughness, while taking in the beauty of Northern Michigan, then this network of NWST, NCST and NEST trails are a MUST ride.
As others have stated, this is NOT hard packed, the gravel is loose, so there is very little coasting. You will want to stand and pedal once in a while to get some nice momentum, and help save your butt in the long haul.
There are LONG, long, very, very mind-numbing straight stretches of trail where there is absolutely nothing but dense forest on either side of you. These are the times when you need your mental toughness, especially on the way back if you're doing a round trip...
You'll appreciate passing through Wolverine by the Sturgeon River - my favorite segment is along Mullet Lake in Tapinabee - once you reach the restroom in Cheboygan, you can choose to hop on the NEST trail 71 miles to Alpina, or continue roughly 20 miles to downtown Mackinac.
I started my trip in the Gaylord area, rode to Mackinac City, took the NWST trail 20 miles West a little past Pelliston, roughly 10 miles from Harbors Springs, before turning back and heading back towards Gaylord.
The last 30 miles of this ride were torture.. it seems no matter how great a saddle and bib, at a distance like this on gravel, on a mtb, will have you feeling like your saddle is made of shards of glass and red ants.
Best of luck to you, and be sure to allow yourself to stop at least a few times to take pictures of the scenery!
I rode this trail for the first time Aug 31st, 2017 traveling from Midland to Coleman and back. Smooth asphalt trail well maintained with very nice benches, tables, and rest rooms all along the trail! Quiet, great scenic ride that is easy to keep your speed up. I was not up for a 60 mile trip to traverse all the way to Clare, so my next visit will be to Clare for an out-and-back taking in the rest this trail has to offer!
We bikepacked the trail in August 2017 with our dog Yoo-Hoo in the trailer. The trail is awesome on the paved sections and challenging on the unpaved portions. We started in Comstock Park and rode north to the Mecosta County Park in Paris. A wonderful little park! There is a great little pizza shop on the trail there. If you plan ahead you can reserve one of the little cabins in the park and forego a tent. That day we had to grind out a 29 mile stretch of gravel, sand, single track, grass and other rough conditions. There are amish buggies using the trail so watch out for them.
It starts at MM21 in Sand Lake and pavement picks up on the south side of Grand Rapids. We took almost 4 hours to do that stretch with our loaded bikes, a dog trailer and stopping for lunch. The next day we rode from Paris to Cadillac and back to our campsite. There is 10 miles of gravel from the north side of Reed City (MM64) to 3 miles south of Leroy (MM74). From Leroy to Cadillac it is beautifully paved with some very pleasant scenery which you can actually enjoy since you arent focused on the trail. If the museum in Tustin is open its worth a stop. its an old potato warehouse and the folks there were so friendly. There is an unbelievable amount of stuff in the museum. We stopped for lunch in downtown Cadillac that had sidewalk seating since we had Yoo-Hoo. We heard from some other riders that the Depot restaurant was also very nice . The third day it was back to our truck in Grand Rapids.
We had mixed feelings. We drove 5 hours to ride this trail not paying close enough attention to the description and thinking unpaved as in crushed stone. We like to ride long trails to make it worth the drive and the 93 miles was part of the attraction. We are glad we rode it but probably wont do it again unless its better surfaced. Im not sure I would recommend it to friends to drive that far. We were hoping since its a State Park it would have been a little better shape. So the beginning, middle and end of the trail is very nice but the two unpaved sections are tedious, tiring and just not a lot of fun.
Now that the portage bike way, north of Milham, has been redesigned, it's an even better ride north to Kilgore. Riding by the old cider mill dam site, brings back many memories. I was hoping that Portage would do something there. Clean it up, or rebuild parts of the old dam. My dad and I would fish the mill pond back in the mid 50's for Trout and Chain Pickerel. Beautiful ride through that area.
TrailLink is a free service provided by Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (a non-profit) and we need your support!
_95075_st.jpg)
_144373_st.jpg)
