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The Pere Marquette Rail Trail runs 30 miles of paved asphalt from the Tridge in downtown Midland northwest to Clare, through Sanford, North Bradley, Coleman, and Loomis. It follows the old Flint and Pere Marquette line up the Tittabawassee River past the Averill Rollway and Arbutus Bog, then crosses farm country and mixed woods into Isabella and Clare counties. The grade is rail flat and the pavement is 14 feet wide, with trailheads and parking at every town. The City of Midland and the three counties each keep their own section, and class one e-bikes are the only motors allowed. At Clare the trail meets the Pere Marquette State Trail, which continues west toward Reed City and Baldwin.
Pere Marquette Rail Trail
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Pere Marquette Rail Trail has about 107 to 156 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, e-biking, biking, birding, running, and walking, with May, September, and October the best months.
Hourly comfort scores for the next 15 days of weather, tuned to your activity and your own thresholds.
Plan your visit to this trail. Get the best windows for a comfortable outing.
Enjoy the Pere Marquette Rail Trail!
In half of past years, color along the Pere Marquette Rail Trail peaks October 13 to 22, typically around October 17. The trail has 32% deciduous coverage, with the majority being red maple, green ash, quaking aspen, and bigtooth aspen.
Log trains on the Flint and Pere Marquette were still dumping white pine into the Tittabawassee at the Averill rollway in 1890. Averill was settled about 1868 as a lumber camp six miles above Midland, and its banking grounds were the largest in the region. Logs rolled in there floated downstream to the sawmills. The road was chartered in 1857 to run from Flint to Lake Michigan at Ludington. The line opened to Midland on December 1, 1867. It reached Averill in October 1868 and Clare in 1870. Ludington followed in 1874. Land grants of more than 500,000 acres paid for much of it, and forest products filled its cars. In 1900 the company merged into the Pere Marquette Railroad. The Chesapeake and Ohio took full ownership in 1947, and the line later passed to CSX. The tracks between Midland and Baldwin came up in the 1980s after the last car ferry traffic at Ludington ended. The first three miles of trail opened at the Tridge in Midland in June 1993. Midland County carried the pavement to Sanford in 1994 and Coleman in 1995. Isabella County took over the 8.25 miles beyond the county line in 1998 and opened them in 2001, reaching the edge of Clare. Rails to Trails Conservancy inducted the trail into its Hall of Fame in 2009. A 2020 flood tore out a third of a mile at Sanford, since rebuilt, and a 2024 connector at Clare tied the trail to the Pere Marquette State Trail.
Chippewa TrailPere Marquette State Trail
