They’re on their way!

Kasey Barker holds the Mile 15 sign that will be placed at the finish line of the Take the Lake Walk / Run and Bike & Hike.

Very soon, walkers, cyclists and paddlers around Lake Waccamaw will have a better idea of the distances of their exercise routines when crews install permanent mile markers on the roads and no-wake poles around the lake.

Produced by Take the Lake and paid for with a grant from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, through Healthy Carolinians, the signs will help the hundreds of participants walking, cycling and paddling around the lake every Labor Day weekend, but their duty won’t stop there.

Most of the 15 markers will be up year-round to help people maintain their exercise routines. Ten markers will be on public roads, measuring the miles from the start line at the Lake Waccamaw State Park visitors center, around the lake to Waccamaw Shores. These signs will be TarHeel blue and white.

Accuracy of the markers is expected to be within one foot every half mile, thanks to N.C. Department of Transportation employee Terry Church, who surveyed the route and measured each mile outside the park.

Markers inside the park will be state park brown and white, and ones on the hiking trails will be permanent. Park rangers will temporarily install signs on the paved park roads each year during Take the Lake.

A corresponding set of (14) markers will be installed on no-wake poles on the lake. They will match the road markers as close as possible, given the placement of the poles and the fact that the water route is one mile shorter than the land route.

Lake Waccamaw town employees will install road markers outside the park and Take the Lake volunteers will install ones on the lake.

In addition to aiding boaters in navigating the lake, it is expected that the mile markers may be helpful in water emergencies. Boaters in distress may be better able to provide their location after siting a mile marker, either one near them or one they had recently passed. Also, with the water and land miles matching, rescuers may be better able to coordinate operations.