Leelanau Conservancy Aims To Add 80-Acre 'Missing Puzzle Piece' To Palmer Woods

The Leelanau Conservancy has something big on its holiday wish list this year: an 80-acre addition to the Palmer Woods Forest Reserve, described by Claire Wood – the Conservancy’s communications director – as “the missing puzzle piece” to the popular hiking, biking, and cross country skiing destination. If the land can be successfully acquired, Wood says it would allow the Conservancy to bring more connection, cohesion, and consistency to Palmer Woods. But the opportunity is subject to a ticking clock: The Conservancy’s option to purchase the parcel is set to expire on New Year’s Eve.

The good news, Wood says, is that most of the money needed is already in hand. Of the $1,090,800 total project cost, the Conservancy has just $96,900 left to raise between now and the end of the year. Per Wood, the organization tallied nearly $1 million in contributions during a “quiet phase” of the fundraising campaign, thanks to sizable donations from the Conservancy’s “closest supporters and major donors.” Now, the fundraising effort is going public with two months to go until the option expires.

At 1,075 acres, Palmer Woods already has the distinction of being the largest natural area in the Conservancy’s portfolio. It’s also one of the organization’s most popular assets, with big numbers of visitors flocking to the reserve to explore its 20 miles of trails.

“Palmer Woods is our four-season destination,” Wood notes. “We offer hiking, mountain biking, and cross country skiing there, and it's the only property in the Conservancy’s care that has mountain biking trails and that we also groom for cross country skiing.”

2016 marked the initial preservation of Palmer Woods, with the Conservancy using funds from a $4.1 million capital campaign to purchase 721 acres near Glen Arbor.

Since then, the Conservancy has made concerted efforts both to expand the natural area and to build out its recreation opportunities. In 2018, for instance, the nonprofit announced it was partnering with Flowtrack Mountain Bike Trails to add a flow-style mountain biking trail at the reserve. The project made Palmer Woods the first place north of Grand Rapids to offer that type of “terrain-induced roller coaster experience” to mountain bikers. Then, in 2020, the Conservancy raised $3.5 million to expand Palmer Woods by 350 acres, creating a five-mile shared border with the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

Those 2020 funds also helped bring about “Palmer Woods 2.0,” a long-term effort to expand the trails on the property. In 2021, Chad Jordan – Leelanau Conservancy’s property and trail maintenance specialist, told the Leelanau Ticker the organization ultimately hopes to have 40 miles of trails at Palmer Woods.

The acquisition of another 80 acres could help bring that goal into reach. While the acreage itself is considerably smaller than the 2020 addition, Wood says the location of the land means it would have an outsized impact on the future of Palmer Woods. Right now, the land that makes up the natural area follows a rough C-shaped curve, which leaves some pieces largely disconnected from others. The 80 new acres would fill in a gap right at the heart of Palmer Woods, potentially allowing for new trail connections and loops.

“What's super cool about this piece is that it's right in the center of Palmer Woods,” Wood says. “The map right now looks kind of like a cinnamon roll, and this piece is right there in the middle. It’s this missing puzzle piece that we've been looking to fill in for quite a while.”

When asked how quickly new trails might come online if/when the Leelanau Conservancy gets its hands on the 80-acre piece, Wood tells the Leelanau Ticker the organization is still nailing down its plans.

“[The new piece] is a little bit different from the rest of Palmer Woods, in that it’s really mature hardwood forest,” she says. “It's never been managed or logged – at least it hasn't in the last 100 years or so. Whereas, a lot of the rest of Palmer Woods has been managed with timber harvests and things like that. And because it hasn’t been managed, there aren’t any existing logging roads on this piece of land.”

With the previously-acquired parts of Palmer Woods, Wood explains that the presence of old logging roads helped provide a foundation for many of the trail systems that now wind their way through the reserve. The new piece would be more of a blank slate.

“And so, we would probably take some extra time to really think through which types of recreation are appropriate on that piece,” Wood says. “It will absolutely be accessible to the public, and we will be putting some trails through it. We just need our stewardship staff to be able to get out there and really think through what's the most ecologically sensitive and what makes the most sense there.”

Beyond the recreation potential of the new parcel, Wood also emphasizes the importance of protecting the land for the purposes of nature conservancy. The mature upland forest on that acreage, she says, is an an important habitat for a diverse array of plant and animal life, an asset for protecting nearby watersheds and preserving regional water quality, and a “living laboratory” where the Leelanau Conservancy’s stewardship team hopes to carry out considerable research in the future.

“There can be so many uses to this land [as part of a nature reserve],” Wood concludes. “It’s not just recreation. There really is just so much ecological value to this property, and we’re so excited to potentially add it to Palmer Woods.”