LANSING, MI (AP)-- Michigan has awarded nearly $250,000 in grants in 15 of the state's counties to help develop a new hiking and bicycling trail stretching hundreds of miles.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources says that each of the 16 grant recipients was awarded up to $25,000 for planning, engineering and design projects along either the hiking route or the bicycle route of the trail, called Michigan's Iron Belle Trail.
A list of projects is posted online.
The trail will run from Belle Isle Park in Detroit to Ironwood in the western Upper Peninsula. Portions already are open in the Lower and Upper peninsulas. The trail will provide a 1,259-mile hiking route and a 774-mile bicycling route.