Ever been to Hoffmaster State Park in late fall? The park is in Norton Shores, between Grand Haven and Muskegon, and is a ghost town that time of year. Wide blacktop roads lead to big parking lots occupied by lots of yellow stripes and one or two cars. You can walk all day on the miles of trails and not see another soul.

On the first Saturday of November, though, the park gets some use, and runners get a heck of a workout at a masterpiece of a trail run organized by Dave Paulsen.

The Hoffmaster Trail Run started off as a four or four-and-a-half miler -- hey, it was too tough and too beautiful and too cool to be too hung up on details like length -- and then was extended to six miles, so people could battle the sand and wind on Lake Michigan a bit longer.

It wasn't a race you did for clock time; it was a race you did because if you run trails, you won't find much prettier or much tougher. It had gut-busting steep ascents, long sand patches in the woods where you seemed to run in place, and that long stretch along the beach.

I'd run it seven of its first nine years: on sunny, 60-degree days and in a snowstorm, with flakes so wet and huge they seemed like special effects from a Christmas movie, four inches of snow on the ground, pine trees bearing a burden of thick white.

The 10th running of Hoffmaster was supposed to be in November 2003, and Paulsen was trying to figure out how to take special note of the anniversary. His biggest field ever, about 135, had come last year and it wasn't out of the question he'd get 150 this year.

The mystery to me was always why 1,000 didn't show up, the race was so unique.

Paulsen called park director Charles Erdman in August to remind him about the race and get approval, which he thought would be a formality. When he didn't get a call back, he figured it was because August is the park's busiest time of year.

Paulsen waited till after Labor Day and called again. No response. He called the end of September. No response. He called in early October.

Finally, ticked off, Paulsen says he left a message with Erdman's secretary saying that he was putting on the race, with or without approval. THAT got a response. Erdman left a message on Paulsen's home phone telling Paulsen that if he so much as saw a runner in the park, he'd close it for the day and lock the gates.

Paulsen called him back. This time they talked. He says Erdman told him there were concerns about damage to animal habitat. Now, remember, these are trails open year-round to hikers and runners, and many are open in winter to cross-country skiers. Some animal builds his house on the trail and, well, yeah, it may get stomped on. And not just on race day.

Paulsen, who grew up in the area and used to play in the woods before they became a state park, asked Erdman if the state was so worried about habitat destruction, why did they tear out all the trees to build those blacktop roads and parking lots? What about the habitat RVs park on in the campground for half the year?

By the end of October, Erdman told Paulsen he'd decided to let him put on the race after all. "By the time they gave me approval, there was no way I could pull it off," Paulsen says. "There was no time to get my fliers out or organize volunteers." So he put out the word via email the race was off.

The Hoffmaster Trail Run is a benefit for the local Salvation Army, with all proceeds -- every nickel in entry fees -- going to buy turkey dinners for poor and homeless people on Thanksgiving.

The poor weren't the only folks disappointed. "I love this race and the course. I live in Romeo and drive across the state every year to run it," said Gabe Makhlouf, who had to cancel this year's trip.

Paulsen says he'll try to hold the 10th Hoffmaster next year. "But I don't want to get into a protracted battle. It's not worth the stress. Basically, the problem is they can't understand why someone would want to run in the woods."

Paulsen says he runs through the park in the summer and sees the herd of RVs parked in the RV section, their fake-grass patios unfurled, their satellite dishes mounted on the roofs. The park rangers seem to have more understanding, he says, for why you'd want to park in the woods and watch satellite TV than why you'd want to scramble down a sand dune, arms akimbo, or battle crashing waves, or huff and puff up a ravine.

The race nearly died three years ago when an ex-park director told Paulsen, on short notice, that he was killing it. Paulsen called me. I got ticked off and starting calling Michigan Department of Natural Resources brass in Lansing, identifying myself as a column writer for Michigan Runner and the Detroit News. I ended up with a DNR honcho who was, by luck, a marathon runner. He said he'd get back to me. The next day, the park director had been overruled and the race was held without incident. That director soon left, replaced by Jerry Walters, a friend to the race before he retired. I'm puzzled why individual directors have so much autonomy. A Pinckney State Recreation Area DNR official loves trail races, so Randy Step can bring more than 1,000 runners there for the Potawatomie Trail runs in April and Dances with Dirt ultras each September. A park director doesn't like running in Norton Shores, and 100 runners are considered a menace to nature. I guess it's the nature of the bureaucratic beast. Several years ago, the local DNR honcho in Kalkaska came to my cabin in Fife Lake State Forest to tell me the 50 acres of jack pine on state land that abutted my half-acre were going to be clear cut. The jack pine was a lousy tree, he said. He had learned in school how to manage the forest, and he was going to manage this swath right out of existence. Never mind that one of his predecessors at DNR Forest Management had let the contract to plant the jack pine in the first place. So they came and tore down the trees and left the ground littered with branches and debris (and the workers' week-worth of McDonald's wrappers). They planted seedlings for some other kind of pine, but most of them died the first winter. I read an article last summer about Kirtland's warblers, an endangered species native to Michigan. Reading it while sitting outside my cabin while a north wind whipped across the new field. What did the article say? That this wonderful little endangered bird's favorite habitat was jack pine. So I guess when it comes to habitat endangerment, running shoes are bad, chain saws are OK. MR