By Mary Drew at Pasty Central (Mdrew) on Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - 04:44 am:
The Nara Nature Trail is our destination today, tagging along with Deborah Goodell. She hiked along the boardwalks with some friends and snapped a number of photos along the way. It is part of the Nara Nature Park, a 100 acre park, which was donated to the City of Houghton by Bob and Ruth Nara.
The following background information is from the Nara Nature Park webpage:
“The Nara Nature Trail Boardwalk is a 4,500 foot long elevated wood boardwalk running along both banks of the Pilgrim River. This boardwalk has fishing sites, benches and access for launching kayaks and canoes.
A historic thunderstorm dropped over 7 inches of rain on the area in just a few hours in the early morning of June 17, 2018. The flooding that followed wiped out the wetland boardwalk system throughout Nara Park. The City of Houghton worked with FEMA to fund the cleanup of the debris and repairs to the boardwalk. A project to clean up and rebuild the boardwalks was designed and the new boardwalks were constructed in the fall of 2020.
The new boardwalks were upgraded to current accessibility standards which includes regrading, width and railings. The boardwalks “float” on the soils within the wetland sections. At key points large screw-type anchors support the structure to keep the boardwalks in place during high water events, while minimizing impact to the wetland soil structure.”
It was quite the project in the beginning and made even better in the rebuilding after the flooding. Kudos to all that were part of this rebuilding project. It sure looks like a peaceful place to take a walk and enjoy the wetland scenery.
We now join 
