Michigan's Dragon: a 45-mile trail that looks like a serpent on the map

Trace the trail on a map and you see where it got the name. Forty-five miles of path wind around every cove and finger of Hardy Dam Pond, twisting back on themselves until the whole route reads like a dragon curled across the middle of the county. Locals just call it the Dragon.

The pond it hugs is the roughly 4,000-acre reservoir the Muskegon River makes behind Hardy Dam, which puts the trail straddling the line between Newaygo and Mecosta counties — so it took two of everybody to build it. The Newaygo and Mecosta County Park Commissions run it jointly, with the West Michigan Mountain Biking Alliance laying out the routes and Consumers Energy and the Fremont Area Community Foundation helping foot the bill. The idea took shape around 2009, and professional crews cut it into the ground in segments over the years that followed.

It’s nonmotorized — hiking, mountain biking, trail running, and in winter snowshoeing and fat-tire riding. The builders made it worth the trip: wooden bridges, stretches of boardwalk, and overlooks that hang above the water. Some of it rolls along easy and flat; other sections pitch and bank through technical ground that riders describe, happily, as a roller coaster.

You don’t have to commit to all 45 miles, and almost nobody does in one go. Start from a trailhead like Sandy Beach County Park and make it an out-and-back as long or short as your legs vote for. One practical note before you load the bikes: the county parks here may want a Newaygo County motor vehicle permit on your dashboard to park at the trailhead.