Thanks to solar lighting, the Lake County Forest Preserve in Illinois was able to answer requests for more nighttime winter activities.

The preserve is installing solar lights along a 1.6-mile trail in its Winter Sports Area near Wauconda, Ill.

“It was really inexpensive and easy to install,” said Mike Tully, director of operations and safety for the preserve. “The whole project cost just a little more than $1,000.”

Tully said park users had been asking for years for a lighted trail that could be used for cross country skiing in the winter.

“Around here, the sun sets at 4:30 p.m.,” Tully said. “And it’s hard for people to do anything after they get off work then.”

The trail connects to a lighted parking lot where there is an ice skating rink and sledding hill. And it will present the perfect opportunity for people to get a little winter exercise outside after dark.

It never would have happened without access to new and affordable solar lighting options, Tully said.

“This is the only way we could have done it,” Tully said. “We weren’t going to bring power out to the trail. That would have been too expensive.”

He said the lights are small and will be affixed to 3-foot wooden posts. They aren’t bright and simply drop puddles of light on the trail.

“They’re a lot like those little solar lights people use to line their walkways at their houses,” Tully said.

The little lights simply act as a guide for skiers and walkers.

“It’s pretty fool proof,” Tully said. “You just go from one light to the next, and you won’t get lost. You’ll end up back where you started.”

Tully and his team tested the lights and found that even the ones in the most heavily wooded parts of the trail absorb enough power during the day to last at least the four hours the preserve needs them to last.

The lights will stay out until March 11, when clocks are set an hour ahead. Then the preserve will remove them, save them and reinstall them the following year.