Cadillac Area
ORV COLLABORATIVE
Using a collaborative approach to bring local stakeholders together, promoting ORV tourism in an organized and responsible way.
The Greater Cadillac Area is a premier destination for family friendly ORV recreation in Michigan!
Building on collaborative efforts supportive of the tourism economy, we intend to create well-considered resources for defining and maintaining a scenic ride experience that drives ORV users to our region in three seasons of the year, while encouraging responsible recreation practices. SUSTAINABILITY & STEWARDSHIP ARE A TOP PRIORITY. We recognize that with the promotion of tourism for motorized and non-motorized recreation opportunities also comes the responsibility to guide users in the proper stewardship of our natural resources.
PHASE 1: 2024 Scenic Ride Launch (Western Wexford County) – Complete
PHASE 2: Continued Mapping Development & Expansions for 2025 Scenic Ride – In Progress
With Proud Partners
Updated: March 7, 2025
After a much needed and long awaited, snowy winter season – we are circling the wagons again on preparing for season 2 of the Cadillac ORV Scenic Ride. We have reordered more off-road swag as we prepare to launch a Spring Jeep Tour promotion on April 2nd. We are excited to report that our partnership with onX Mapping will lead to digital mapping that is scheduled to launch on their platform this June. We are working with our key partners to expand wayfinding signage and confidence markers through the ride this year, while pursuing additional grant funding to support these efforts. Stay tuned for our next full partner meeting date – TBD.
NEXT STEPS:
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- Digital Mapping with onX – Launching in June 2025
- Spring Jeep Tour Promotional Campaign – In Progress
- More confidence markers to be installed along the scenic ride – Summer 2025
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Updated: October 9, 2024
Thanks to all who joined us live for our first ORV stakeholder update since our launch on May 1st! It was great to see many of you on the call and get first hand feedback and understanding of what you are seeing on your side of things. Lots of positive feedback has been rolling in all summer long and we are learning about specific places along the ride where maintenance is needed.
NEXT STEPS:
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- Digital Mapping Discussions – In progress for 2025
- Fall ORV Advertising Campaign – In Progress
- More confidence markers to be installed along the scenic ride
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NEXT STEPS:
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- Expanded Mapping Discussions – in progress for 2025
- Fall ORV Advertising Campaign – In Progress
- More confidence markers to be installed along the scenic ride
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Updated: August 31, 2024
After more earned media opportunities this month we are finally winding down on the wave of “free press” and beginning to run our first paid promotions driving ORV tourism to the greater Cadillac area. We were so excited to host MLive’s Eric Hultgren as well as Kyle and Drew from the Pure Michigan video team out on our trails to gather footage and create some great content and publicity for this new ride! They all had a great time and we are so happy to be getting such good feedback from all who have been out riding in our forests. Also this month we rounded up some of our key partners to touch base on how things are going on the ground, including conditions of forest and county roads after a summer season with hot/dry temperatures, spurts of torrential rain and increased ORV traffic. We are committed to being good stewards of these roads as we continue to gather the answers on maintenance and sustainability. Thank you to our core partners in this project as we all continue to work towards the same goals.
Scenic Ride Launch: May 1, 2024
Brandon Jensen of RightSide Design Group and Pete Finch of Coyote Crossing Resort were instrumental in getting us to this point, including installing our signage on the days leading up to the launch – thank you both for all of your hard work on this project!
NEXT STEPS:
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- More kiosks and confidence markers installed along the scenic ride
- 2025 Stakeholder discussions & mapping expansions
- Ongoing marketing & advertising promotions
- Next ORV Stakeholder Meeting – TBA – Stay tuned!
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NEXT STEPS:
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- Mapping/Routing & Stakeholder Discussions – finalized for 2024 launch, 2025 mapping conversations continue
- Marketing & Advertising Planning – In Progress
- Signage & Print Materials – Waiting to Arrive
- Marketing Plans for Launch – May 1, 2024
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Updated: April 2, 2024
Our ORV maps and kiosk signage have been finalized and are in production! These will arrive in a couple of weeks for distribution & installation throughout the month of April to get ahead of our full campaign launch on May 1st! Stay tuned for invitations to our ORV launch at the Caberfae Staging area trail head, with reception at Coyote Crossing Resort to follow. We will have multiple ORV rental partners joining us that day and will be offering short rides to some of our guests that afternoon so they can scope out the new signage and map for themselves!
Updated: February 26, 2024
We are putting the finishing touches on our printed ORV brochure! We will receive a large freight shipment of these in March for distribution throughout the state during the month of April to get ahead of our full campaign launch on May 1st! We continue to discuss scenic ride routing in areas that are not yet finalized on the map, to be included in the 2025 version of this ORV print guide. We are working on timelines and tactics for our digital launch with Rightside Design Group, our PR agency and several other 3rd party advertisers to help spread the word on this new initiative throughout the rest of the 2024 calendar year. The marketing campaign will have different pushes as we enter each new season. Our new mobile visitor center looks great next to the new signage, don’t you think?
NEXT STEPS:
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- Mapping/Routing & Stakeholder Discussions – ongoing
- Zoning/Land Use – In Progress
- Marketing & Advertising Planning – In Progress
- Signage & Print Materials – In Production
- Marketing Plans for Spring Launch – May 1, 2024
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NEXT STEPS:
Stakeholders will be emailed with various workgroup opportunities over the next several weeks – currently these are:
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- Mapping/Routing & Stakeholder Discussions – ongoing
- Zoning/Land Use – In Progress
- Signage & Print Materials – In Production
- Marketing Plans for Spring Launch – May 1, 2024
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Updated: December 1, 2023
We are so happy to see our first 3 kiosks installed in the Cadillac West and Caberfae areas! We also have a digital version of our map ready to share here on our website. There may be some small changes before we take these maps to print in early 2024, so stay tuned. A final round up call for the year will be held on December 13th via zoom with our general group of stakeholders. We will recap the progress made this year and present some solid information about where things stand as we look ahead to our big spring launch!
Updated: October 20, 2023
Before we can print thousands of maps for our big launch in the Spring of 2024, we needed to finalize some finer details on our base map. This week we drove 70 miles over 6 hours, making notes and discussing important wayfinding and logistical issues as we navigated our proposed scenic ride through the western parts of Wexford County. The fall colors were beautiful and it truly is scenic and enjoyable to ride! Huge thank you again to Pete Finch at Coyote Crossing Resort, Libby Doering at Bigfoot Epic Adventures and Brandon Jensen at Right Side Design Group for all of their support and hard work through this complex project. Our first kiosks will be installed next month! Digital mapping for phase 1 of our scenic ride will be available later next month. Full launch slated for the spring of 2024! Thank you to 9&10 News for their continued coverage of our progress in this exciting project. Also airing on 9&10 this week was an update on the Lake County ORV training center, also set to launch in the Spring of 2024!
NEXT STEPS:
Stakeholders will be emailed with various workgroup opportunities over the next several weeks – currently these are:
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- Mapping/Routing & Stakeholder Discussions – Nearing Completion for Phase 1
- Stewardship – Ongoing
- Organizational Partnerships – Ongoing
- Law Enforcement – Ongoing
- Zoning/Land Use – In Progress
- Signage/Branding & Marketing – Nearing Approval
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Updated: September 6, 2023
We had a great meeting of a variety of stakeholders to review progress and update everyone on next steps and plans for a soft, digital launch this fall. A full roll out with printed maps, wayfinding and site improvements slated for Spring of 2024. See presentation below for more detailed information that was shared with the group at Sunset Shores today.
NEXT STEPS:
Stakeholders will be emailed with various workgroup opportunities over the next several weeks – currently these are:
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- Mapping/Routing & Stakeholder Discussions – Ongoing
- Stewardship – Ongoing
- Organizational Partnerships – Ongoing
- Law Enforcement – Ongoing
- Zoning/Land Use – In Progress
- Maintenance Branding & Marketing – Nearing Approval
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Updated: August 18, 2023
Our mapping has been reviewed by law enforcement and we are now ready for the final stages of approval through the local townships touched in our Phase 1 “scenic ride” mapping. We are also set to host another full group meeting of ORV stakeholders on Wednesday, September 6th at 3pm at Sunset Shores Resort in Cadillac. Invitations to this meeting will go out soon!
We also had the pleasure of meeting with representatives of the newly established Benzie Manistee Dirtbirds and the Benzie Manistee Snowbirds. They are working hard on many of the same types of ORV routing and things as our team here in Cadillac. We look forward to collaborating from a connectivity standpoint with our neighbors to the west!
More exciting news to share as we are now partnering with Can-Am Off-Road (thank you to TreadLightly! for connecting us) on the wayfinding and signage for this project! They have granted us a generous amount of funding, enough to purchase 3 kiosks for high traffic areas and a staging area.
NEXT STEPS:
Stakeholders will be emailed with various workgroup opportunities over the next several weeks – currently these are:
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- Mapping/Routing & Stakeholder Discussions – Ongoing
- Stewardship – Ongoing
- Organizational Partnerships – Ongoing
- Law Enforcement – Ongoing
- Zoning/Land Use – In Progress
- Maintenance Branding & Marketing – Nearing Approval
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Updated: June 28, 2023
We are working through the first stages of the branding process with emphasis on safety and education. Stay tuned as we plan to unveil some of that to the larger internal working group soon. We received some exciting news that we will be awarded additional grant funding through one of our national partnerships – more on that soon!
Just this week, we made a trip out to Wellston to have our phase 1 Scenic Ride map approved by the US Forest Service team. After more input from the Wexford County Road Commission and some additional adjustments this week we will connect with local law enforcement next for the finalization of phase 1 mapping. Expect an ORV full stakeholder group update very soon!
NEXT STEPS:
Stakeholders will be emailed with various workgroup opportunities over the next several weeks – currently these are:
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- Mapping/Routing & Stakeholder Discussions – Ongoing
- Stewardship – Ongoing
- Organizational Partnerships – Ongoing
- Law Enforcement – In Progress
- Zoning/Land Use – In Progress
- Maintenance Branding & Marketing – In Progress
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Updated: March 10, 2023
This week we had the opportunity to discuss the ORV initiative on the 9&10 Morning Show, Good Day Northern Michigan!
Later the same week we were able to attend the North Country Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area (NCCISMA) annual meeting in Baldwin, MI. Lots of great presentations and topics discussed about invasives in our area and ORV’s specifically.
Progress continues on mapping discussions! Stay tuned for more updates…
Updated: February 20, 2023
With a master base map now complete, several potential “scenic ride” options for ORV’s have been discussed using existing roads and trails within Wexford County. Discussions between top land management stakeholders all centered around maintaining integrity of the land, ORV user safety and experience, as well as the interests of local business owners, residents and all other primary stakeholders involved. Connectivity to neighboring networks are also being discussed. Proposed “scenic rides” for our 2023 version of the user map are currently under review.
We continue to build our list of points of interest to be considered as stopping points along these “scenic rides” and coordinators of this work group will be reaching out to more stakeholders to collect feedback on the initial version of the proposed map.
NEXT STEPS:
Stakeholders will be emailed with various workgroup opportunities over the next couple of months – currently these are:
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- Mapping/Routing & Stakeholder Discussions – Ongoing
- Stewardship – Ongoing
- Organizational Partnerships – In Progress
- Law Enforcement – In Progress
- Zoning/Land Use – In Progress
- Maintenance Branding & Marketing – Next Up
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Updated: January 20, 2023
Base mapping is nearly complete after very productive discussions between key local partners, including the US Forest Service and the MDNR. We will now circle back to local law enforcement and other stakeholders about next steps in identifying potential issues related to recommended routing. The press release below outlines two national partnerships we have entered at the start of this year. This step forward will be important as we move further into the stewardship messaging, branding and wayfinding phases of this project.
NEXT STEPS:
Stakeholders will be emailed with various workgroup opportunities over the next couple of months – currently these are:
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- Mapping/Routing & Stakeholder Discussions – Ongoing
- Stewardship – Tread Lightly & Leave No Trace agreements signed
- Organizational Partnerships – In Progress
- Law Enforcement
- Zoning/Land Use
- Maintenance Branding & Marketing
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Updated: November 29, 2022
GIS Base mapping is in progress and we have had preliminary discussions with local law enforcement and other stakeholders about first steps in identifying priorities and known issues related to connectivity. The press release below explains funding sources and more details on this initiative.
NEXT STEPS:
Stakeholders will be emailed with various workgroup opportunities over the next several months – currently these are:
- Mapping/Routing & Stakeholder Discussions – In Progress
- Zoning/Land Use
- Law Enforcement
- Maintenance/Stewardship
- Organizational Partnerships
- Branding & Marketing
Meeting #1 – Project Overview
August 31, 2022
Thank you to everyone who joined us for our launch meeting! We will be in touch with you all soon to get things started within smaller working groups.