Over the years the Cadillac Pathway has suffered from some erosion issues especially on about a 1 mile stretch exposing some tree roots.
Through the profits from the Bear Claw Epic Mountain Bike Race and consultation with the DNR we experimented with buying 18 yards of 22A road gravel. This road gravel consists of clay, sand and small stone. The idea is that once we would receive some rain and from users using the trail the clay would compact down and would sustain the hillside.
A team of five workers (John Smith, Bill Spurgeon, Charlie Decker, Michele Andrews, and Sam the dog) along with the assistance of the MDNR spread the road gravel on 1/4 mile of the trail to experiment.
After the snow melt in the spring of 2016 we inspected the road gravel to see how it held up and we were very pleased with what we saw. However with some very hard rainfalls in the summer of 2016 we noticed some trenches that were created and therefore concluded to not proceed with laying more gravel. The trenches have been smooth out by hand (and continue to hold up). Even though it didn’t work on some small sections of the trail it did sustain in other places covering up the tree roots.
The Cadillac Pathway Committee has decided to move forward with a trail proposal to build more sustainable single track. Stay tuned for more details. 
