RailTrailWxRailTrailWxRail trail guide
Marquette County, MI
A 46.17 mile rail trail in MI.
Connecting trails: Snowmobile Trail #82
Planning a ride? Check the hourly forecast.
The Iron Ore Heritage Trail runs about 46 miles across the Marquette Iron Range in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, linking Chocolay Township and Lake Superior with Marquette, Negaunee, Ishpeming, Humboldt, and Republic. It stitches together abandoned mining railroad grades and old plank road routes. The route changes character as you go: asphalt through the cities, crushed aggregate across the townships, and raw unimproved grade in the western miles. The corridor climbs steadily inland, gaining roughly 885 feet from the lake end to Republic, so westbound is work on a bike and eastbound is a long coast. Interpretive signs, kilns, and mining museums sit on the trailside the whole way.
The Iron Ore Heritage Trail runs through a lake-filled stretch of the Upper Peninsula that was once valued for its hardwood forests. These forests later fed the charcoal kilns that smelted iron. In 1844 a government survey party led by William A. Burt noticed their compasses swinging wildly south of Teal Lake, and the Marquette Iron Range was on the map. Commercial mining began in 1847, and the Jackson Mining Company put up a forge on the Carp River a few miles from the new Jackson Mine; it ran fitfully, made little iron and no money, and was abandoned in 1854. The mines themselves lasted, and Cleveland-Cliffs came to dominate the range. Railroads followed the ore, cutting grades from the pits down to the Lake Superior harbor at Marquette and hauling lumber back up to the furnaces and forges. As the mines closed and the corridors went quiet, Marquette County communities began piecing the abandoned railways and old plank road routes back together as a single path. The Iron Ore Heritage Trail was largely completed in 2013 and has been upgraded in cycles since, with surfacing pushed steadily westward. New trailheads, interpretive signage, exhibits, and artwork are installed along the way. It is funded and managed by the Iron Ore Heritage Recreation Authority, a free-standing unit of local government supported by a millage from the municipalities the trail crosses.
Hour by hour scores for heat, wind, rain, and shade on Iron Ore Heritage Trail.
Free account required for most trails. Pine Creek is free for everyone.
Managed by Iron Ore Heritage Recreation Authority
