KENT: It's part trail. It's part super-wide sidewalk. And it's packed with topography.

Welcome to the Portage Hike and Bike Trail at Kent State University.

Saturday, the university and its trail-building partners will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the trail, which stretches nearly three miles from near South Lincoln Street to Dix Stadium off East Summit Street.

The ceremony will be at 10:30 a.m. at Seiberling Drive just north of the WKSU Broadcast Center. The event will include a fun walk at 11:30 a.m. for students and the community.

The new trail is winning rave reviews.

''I absolutely love it,'' said Emilie Noland, 19, of Marysville, a sophomore majoring in early childhood education. It's a chance to walk in nature and to get away from campus, she said. She said she walks the new path once a week.

Added Emily Johnson, 19, of Richmond, a freshman in middle childhood education: ''It's very pretty.''

Kent State invested just under $1 million on the sidewalk-trail and received $540,000 more in federal and state grants, said university spokesmen Tom Euclide and Tom Clapper.

Getting the trail built is ''a significant accomplishment . . . and a big step,'' Clapper said.

The campus trail section is part of a still-growing Portage County effort to replicate the popular Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail in Summit, Stark, Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas counties, he said.

''It's a great new milestone in the development of the Portage Hike and Bike Trail . . . and an example (that) our partnerships are working well as we coordinate trail planning and grant seeking,'' said Christine Craycroft, executive director of the Portage Park District.

The northwest terminus of the new trail is near South Lincoln Street and Hilltop Drive between Rockwell and Franklin halls on Kent State's front campus.

The red and white sidewalk goes uphill, passes Kent Hall and then there's another hill. The sidewalk grows to 40 feet wide at the Esplanade between Olson and Bowman halls.

The sidewalk goes past the Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center and into Risman Plaza between the Student Center and Library. The sidewalk narrows at Cunningham and Henderson halls. The route winds past a track and a soccer field.

Near Loop and Rhodes roads, behind the university's Child Development Center, the sidewalk becomes a paved asphalt trail.

It is a pretty trail through a pine plantation and wooded groves, tucked behind parking lots and generally running from northwest to southeast along East Summit Street.

It includes two brown-painted boardwalks next to a wetland with ducks, geese and wading birds. There is a small bridge over a creek. There is also a large bridge over state Route 261.

The trail also connects with Franklin Township's bike lanes off Horning Road.

The 12-foot-wide trail ends at the northwest corner of the parking lot at the football stadium.

The best advice on the latter half of the trail is to look for the brown wooden posts. Farther north, follow the fancy red and white sidewalks.

There are a few hills but none are killers.

Plans call for a future trail connection from the Kent State stadium to the county-run Towner's Woods Park in Franklin Township.

There, trail users will be able to connect with an already-complete section of the Portage Hike and Bike Trail. A five-mile trail segment runs from Lake Rockwell Road near Brady Lake to Chestnut Hills Park in Ravenna, Craycroft said.

Work likely will begin this fall on extending the trail west from Lake Rockwell Road to Crane Avenue in Kent.

There are also plans to extend the trail from Peck Road two miles to the east to Peck Road in Ravenna Township and to run the trail 1.5 miles along the Cuyahoga River to Middlebury Road in southwest Kent.

The trail is a key element in the Portage Park District's countywide parks, trails and greenways plan.