Snowmobiling Traverse City, MI

Traverse City’s Boardman Valley Snowmobile Trail ranks among the Midwest’s best

Dec 13, 2006

Traverse City, Michigan's Boardman Valley Snowmobile Trail offers fine Midwest sledding through open stands of oak alternate with dense pine, spruce and hemlock forests.

Snowmobiling Traverse City style is a blend of backwoods adventure, aesthetic appreciation and more than a bit of off-the-trail pampering.

The pinnacle? Traverse City’s Boardman Valley Trail: an 80-mile network of scenic routes that wanders through thick green cedars and pines beside a snow-cradled river, skirts the edges of icebound lakes among wooded hills, and glides through stands of oak where deer run silently beside the pathway.

It’s not the fastest, most thrill-packed ride in the world. But it’s gentle and beautiful, and best of all, it’s just a few minutes from Traverse City, whose restaurants, galleries, casinos and resorts provide a welcome dose of luxury at the end of a day’s ride.

Sledders come to this laid-back community on the Lake Michigan shore because they want to sample its winter amenities.

The restaurants, each with its own personality, and hotels with hot tubs afford welcome indulgences after riding all day. Like Mode’s Bum Steer for a nice big steak and a bottle of Traverse City Riesling.

Also popular are the nearby Turtle Creek Casino, a dinner at the posh Trillium Restaurant or a concert at Traverse City’s newly-restored 1891 Opera House.

Lodging? Try Ranch Rudolf, a real-life dude ranch deep in the heart of the Boardman Valley that becomes a winter Mecca for trail-riders. Some spend a night or two at the lodge, but most just drop by to spend an hour or two by the fireplace.

Most of Traverse City's lodging is spread along the city’s two bayfront beach areas. There, 60 hotels, motels and resorts provide almost 4,000 rooms ranging from the budget-conscious to the luxurious. The majority of the town’s restaurants and night spots are there, as well, and it’s convenient to three of the five staging areas that feed into the trail system at Hoosier Valley, Rasho Road, and Supply Road.

Hoosier Valley, at the western end of the system, is a steep section of trail with more wide-open spaces that provide opportunities for faster riding. Supply Road is on the opposite end, in a remote section of high woods. Rasho Road, at the center of the trail network, is closest to the heart of Traverse City’s hotel/resort district; it can be easily reached by way of the popular High Lake Spur, a five-mile roller-coaster trail over a series of glacial hills.

Farther to the southeast stands the village of Fife Lake, where the Boardman system links up with an even larger series of trails to the south and east by way of a snowmobile bridge over the Manistee River. The ride includes many turnoffs along the river and lookouts over the broad Manistee Valley.

The trails encompass many landscapes: snug tunnels of tall snowy evergreens, open stands of hardwood where the sun shines down through blue shadows, high ridges where eagles soar, wide meadows that look out over distant glacial lakes. Sledders accustomed to the wide-open raceway style conditions in other snowmobiling areas say they’re amazed at how often they seem to have the Traverse City trails to themselves ,especially mid-week.

You can ride sometimes for several miles through the pine forest and not see another group of sleds.

Snowmobile Rentals: Several outfitters are located near the trailheads; they one- two- and three-passenger machines, including

Stops along the Trail: The amenities along the Boardman Valley trail system are diverse, including

Other Things to Do:

The copyright of the article Snowmobiling Traverse City, MI in Winter Sports is owned by Mitch Kaplan. Permission to republish Snowmobiling Traverse City, MI in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.