Clinton River Trail

After giving my bike a much needed tune-up, I headed out today on a long ride in the beautiful weather.  Since Scottie's enjoyed exploring the Clinton River Trail up in Auburn Hills and Rochester Hills, I figured I should give this one a shot.  Plus it gave me a destination to ride to.  I probably should have planned out my route a little more thoroughly as I started up Woodward Avenue thinking I could make it to Opdyke without much trouble.  I forgot about the large stretches of road without sidewalks, so I didn't get very far riding-wise as this wasn't like Chicago where drivers are at least aware that bikers might be on their side.  Anyway, I ended up cutting over Big Beaver to Kensington to Opdyke. Much safer route!

Once I hit Opdyke Road and just a little north of South Boulevard, I met up with the portion of the Clinton River Trail just before mile 9.  Just a little more background on the Clinton River Trail:

The Clinton River Trail [CRT] is a recreational trail following 16 miles of abandoned rail line once known as the Michigan Airline through the heart of Oakland County, including the cities of Sylvan Lake, Pontiac, Auburn Hills, Rochester Hills and Rochester. It connects with the existing West Bloomfield trail to the west and the Macomb Orchard Trail to the east. The CRT is part of an envisioned trail to be called the Great Lake to Lake Trail, that will extend from Port Huron to South Haven when completed. The trail has a variety of surfaces, ranging from crushed limestone to pavement.  

The Auburn Hills stretch of land had a sign that mentioned that in the 1870's this used to be a railway line for the Grand Trunk Railway.  Freight trains ran consecutively for 118 years until 1998.  In 1999, the City of Auburn Hills purchased the 2.1 mile length within the city limits.

Some of the trail ended up being paved, which made for easy riding; however, other portions along the way were covered in crushed limestone.  One of the more intriguing parts of the tail was riding across the bridge on I-75 just for pedestrians!

Here's a map of the existing part of the trail.  I ended up riding all the way to mile 3 before I turned around and headed back to mile 7 where I ended South on Adams Road.  Luckily, Adams had a sidewalk the whole way except for one strange portion.  All in it was probably well over a 25-mile ride, including some of the ride down to the bike repair.

Halfway along the trail, I couldn't believe this sign for Mastodon Crossing.  How strange until I read in the sign that scientists discovered a prehistoric Mastodon in this area in 2006.  More from the signage:

Scientists estimated finding 30% of the animal, which was taking to Cranbrook for further study.  It was a young male, around 25 years old that stood approximately 80ft tall.  It's estimated death was about 12,360 years ago. This is the 16th Mastodon found in Oakland County.