The Michigan Shore-to-Shore Trail (also known as the Michigan Riding and Hiking Trail) is a trail that runs between

Empire An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and depth () after Lake Superior and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the ...

and Oscoda on

Lake Huron Lake Huron ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is shared on the north and east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the south and west by the U.S. state of Michigan. The name of the lake is derived from early French ex ...

across the

Lower Peninsula of Michigan The Lower Peninsula of Michigan – also known as Lower Michigan – is the larger, southern and less elevated of the Geography of Michigan, two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; the other being the Upper Peninsula of Mic ...

. It is open to horseback riders and hikers but not bicycles. The trail's western end is located within the

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is a U.S. national lakeshore in the northwestern Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Located within Benzie and Leelanau counties, the park extends along a stretch of Lake Michigan's eastern coastline, as well ...

. The trail, going from west to east, travels through the

Boardman River The Boardman River ( '), also known as the Ottaway River ( ') or the Boardman–Ottaway River, is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed November 21, 2011 river in the north ...

valley and follows the Au Sable River for about . The trail was developed by trail riders in 1962 and travels through mixed hardwood and

conifer Conifers () are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a sin ...

forests. Public campgrounds are located throughout the route. Michigan has many other important and scenic trails. Chief among them is the

North Country National Scenic Trail The North Country Trail (NCT, officially designated the North Country National Scenic Trail) is a long-distance hiking trail in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern and Northeastern United States, Northeastern United States. The trail exten ...

Notes

External links