Church group tackles invasive species
Most of the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail has wooded edges that is habitat for a diversity of wildlife. The trees, shrubs, vines and herbaceous ground cover provide fruit and seeds, green browse, winter cover, nesting sites, and protection from predators. One of the many services that Isabela Torres, our 2018 summer intern, provided was to design a long-term plan to increase …
Riding the Pumpkinvine reduces stress
If you are a Pumpkinvine “regular,” chances are you might have seen Lori Copsey on the trail. A 25-year Goshen resident and avid cyclist, Lori Copsey lives near the library, so it’s convenient for her to access the trail at Abshire Park where she begins most of her rides on the Pumpkinvine these days. Before the Pumpkinvine was built, Lori …
Learning from three trail incidents
In early August, a young male was observed riding back and forth on the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail between the State Road 13 and County Road 43 on a moped. Besides the illegality of riding a motorized vehicle on the trail, the person was also harassing other trail users. Those trail users called the police, and they arrested the person for …
A Timeless Journey – An article published in Elkhart County Living
An article published in the Aug./Sept. issue of Elkhart County Living recalls the vision and development of the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail. The article is available here.
Mike Cloud & Penn Central
When I was reporting to the Pumpkinvine Advisory Committee recently about a rails-to-trails conference I attended, I was reminded of the first national rails-to-trails conference I attended in Baltimore in 1991. It was a fateful conference because it put our new Friends group in touch with the right person at Penn Central, the owner of the Pumpkinvine corridor. The conference …
Shaded and unshaded areas of the Pumpkinvine
One of the obvious features of the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail is that it has both shaded and unshaded areas. The shaded areas are where the trail is on the former railroad corridor. The railroad was built on a strip of land that was either 66 or 80 feet wide, and the railroad bed was only 10 feet wide in the …
Memorable day
Today I took a ride on the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail from Goshen to Shipshewana. I left Goshen around 8:30 a.m. after eating a pancake and sausage breakfast at the MCC Relief Sale at the Elkhart County fairgrounds. I took the Monroe Street Trail to the Abshire Trail to the Pumpkinvine. It was a cool 50 degrees, a hint of fall. …
Memorial to Ike Heign dedicated Sept. 19, 2018
The Heign family with memorial stone: Greg, Bob, Mary Lou, Randy and Jeff. The memorial is located along the Pumpkinvine, 100 yards south of Sun Rise Lane. Members of the Heign family gathered on Sept. 19 to dedicate a section the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail in Middlebury to Ike Heign. Jim Smith, former executive director of the Friends who negotiated the …
The importance of maintenance
When I became interested in rails-to-trails in the early 1990s, the closest trail to when I lived was the Kal-Haven Trail, formally known as the Kal-Haven Sesquicentennial State Park: https://www.traillink.com/trail/kal-haven-trail-sesquicentennial-state-park/ The trail runs 34 miles from west of Kalamazoo to South Haven Michigan with a crushed stone surface. Whenever I needed inspiration and a renewed vision of what the Pumpkinvine corridor …
Biking provides a chance to enjoy nature
Read Rachel Shenk’s recent article in the Goshen News about bicycling on the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail. Download the article as a pdf file.