The goal is that someday recreational athletes will be able to hop on a trail at the mouth of the Black River in Lorain and run, walk, bike or rollerblade all the way to Kipton in southern Lorain County.

That vision came one step closer to reality with the opening this week of the Black River Trail Extension, a mile of trail that connects Lorain County Metro Parks’ High Meadows to the Bridgeway Trail at Bur Oak Picnic Area in Elyria.

The extension puts the Metro Parks a mile closer to its goal, but, more significantly, its construction helped the Metro Parks climb a major mountain – literally – in trail logistics.

“We had to go 80 vertical feet to get out of that valley,” Metro Parks director Dan Martin said.

Doing so would have been incredibly expensive had it not been for “a unique and creative solution to a problem” – help from the Ohio Department of Transportation, which let the Metro Parks use its Interstate 90 embankment to climb out of Bur Oak.

“If we’d had to build an 80- foot-high pile of dirt, we couldn’t have done it till we had accessed a lot of money,” Martin said. “Taxpayers’ money has been saved, and the trail has a direct route to High Meadows.”

Once the trail climbs the embankment, it crosses under the I-90 bridge and the Black River on a new trail bridge that’s 330 feet long and 40 to 50 feet off the ground.

“The views from there are amazing,” Martin said.

The trail, which is partially wooded and partially open, ends at the High Meadows picnic area on Ford Road. Access to the trail and parking are available at both High Meadows and Bur Oak.

The latest section of trail is the second of four phases that will eventually connect to the 14-mile North Coast Inland Trail, which runs from Kipton to downtown Elyria to the Henderson Bridge in Lorain.

The 3½-mile Bridgeway Trail, which opened in 1993, connects the Bur Oak picnic area on Ford Road in Elyria to the Days Dam picnic area on East 31st Street in Lorain. The first phase of the Black River Trail Extension is the Steel Mill Trail that is two miles long and opened in May 2008. It connects to the Bridgeway Trail at Days Dam and to state Route 611 in Lorain.

The third phase of the project will continue north from the end of the Steel Mill Trail and end near the Henderson Bridge in Lorain. It will be two miles long. The final phase will continue south from High Meadows and connect to the North Coast Inland Trail. Phase four will be about four miles long.

“Everybody’s excited,” Martin said. “You have those people who walk a mile, and you have those that want the long distance. The more miles you string together, the more people you appeal to.”

Martin said ODOT’s help was vital in getting this latest piece of the trail done so easily and cheaply.

With ODOT’s help, “construction was very simple and saved us a lot of money,” Martin said. “And we got a result that’s attractive, safe and cool looking.”

“When you’re working around their bridges, they can find lots of reasons to say no, and they said yes.”

Contact Rona Proudfoot at 329-7124 or rproudfoot@chroniclet.com.