A long weekend in Montague

The best argument for a long weekend here is that you can leave the car parked for most of it. The rail trail starts in town. The weathervane and the one meal worth planning around are both downtown, a short walk from most front doors. Only the Lake Michigan beach asks for a drive — a short one.

This is a three-night plan — Friday to Monday — built around one house in Montague, close enough to the water and the trailhead that a family of four or five can walk to most of it. Book the house first: the Montague home we manage puts you inside the cluster below. Everything after that is deciding what order to do it in. For the town itself, start with the Montague guide.

Friday: arrive, eat, walk it off

Come in the late afternoon. Drop the bags, then go find the weathervane before dinner, because it is a two-minute drive or a ten-minute walk from the middle of town.

It stands at Water and Dowling, in front of Montague Foods, and it is 48 feet tall. The wind arrow runs 26 feet. On top sits a 14-foot replica of the Ella Ellenwood, a Great Lakes lumber schooner whose home port was White Lake — the real ship ran aground north of Milwaukee in October 1901 and the crew walked away from it. Built in 1984. It has held the largest-weathervane record ever since.

Then eat. The Book Nook & Java Shop at 8744 Ferry Street has been the downtown gathering spot since 2002 — a bookstore, a coffee counter, a bakery, and a wine bar called Best Cellars, all in one room, with soups and sandwiches and cases of cakes and croissants and pie. Check the hours before you go, because they shift by day and season, but it runs into the evening most nights and there is often live piano. A slow first night. That is the assignment.

Saturday: the trail

Saturday is the trail ride, and it is the reason the car stays home. The William Field Memorial Hart-Montague Trail State Park runs 22.7 miles north from Montague to Hart, following the old Chicago & West Michigan railroad grade — which means it is flat, or close to it, the whole way. It was the first paved rail trail in Michigan when it opened in 1989. The state resurfaced and widened it to ten feet in 2016.

You do not have to ride 22.7 miles. Nobody with kids should. The point of a rail grade is that you can turn around whenever the smallest rider is done and coast most of the way back. Ride north to Rothbury or as far as the legs hold, eat what you packed, turn around. Bring water, sunscreen, and a patch kit — there are long stretches with no town in them, and the shade comes and goes.

Back in Montague, a two-mile spur called the Medbery Bike Trail loops past the band shell and the little league fields if anyone still has miles in them. Most people won’t. Save the beach for tomorrow, when the afternoon sun is on the water.

Sunday: Lake Michigan

Sunday is the beach, and this is the only real drive of the weekend — roughly ten minutes west out Old Channel Trail to Medbery Park, at the mouth of the White Lake channel. The city of Montague owns it. Six hundred feet of Lake Michigan sand, a small picnic area, restrooms with no running water, and benches along the channel where you can watch boats come and go from White Lake to the big water.

The channel is the draw as much as the sand. You can fish anywhere along it. Across the water sits the White River Light Station in Whitehall — a stone lighthouse you can see from the beach and tour on another day. The park runs 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. — no alcohol, no glass, no overnight parking. Pack a lunch, because there is nothing to buy out here.

Stay for the sun going down. A west-facing Lake Michigan beach in summer means you lose an hour to it whether you meant to or not — the temperature drops fast once it is gone, so bring a layer even in July. Then drive the ten minutes back into town for dinner. The Book Nook works twice. So does anywhere in Whitehall across the bridge.

The drive times, plainly

The whole plan lives inside a small radius. From a house in downtown Montague, the weathervane and the Book Nook are a walk. The Hart-Montague trailhead is in town — call it five minutes to the parking, less if you are riding from the door. Medbery Park and the Lake Michigan beach are the one genuine drive: about ten minutes each way, longer on a hot Saturday when everyone else has the same idea, which is why we put the beach on Sunday.

Go before Labor Day. Bring bikes if you have them. Monday you pack the car, and if checkout runs late there is time for one more coffee downtown before the highway.

The trail will still be there.