A Mini-Adventure at Branstrom Park

Today was my day to have the stitches out of my mouth, requiring a trip to Muskegon. I couldn't waste the drive!

Well, I wanted to get another short Newaygo County trail to write about, so I went to Branstrom Park in Fremont. They are supposed to have a wooded two-mile hiking loop.

Yes, yes they do. The sign says it's well-marked. Hmm. Some of it is well marked. I had to stop someone right out of the parking lot and ask where the loop started. OK, got it. Then it was quite well marked. Until it wasn't. Or maybe it was. But the problem is that the park also has a disc golf course so there are trails all over the place. I managed to walk 2.5 miles, and I think I missed a section of the actual trail.

When I lost the trail and then came back to an intersection where I'd been before, I knew I'd gotten messed up.

I was using Avenza to track my route, which would allow me to find my way back even it I got really off. An awful lot of trails show up on Open Streets Map which is free with the Avenza download. But this one was not there. And I hadn't been able to find a map online (well, for free. AllTrails has it, but I'm not a member).

Anyway, after I lost the marked trail again, and came to another fork that was marked to the right, I chose left because I needed to get back to the car and on to the dentist. Found this cute little covered table.

Near the beginning are a couple of small bridges. The waterway is Daisy Brook Creek. I liked this rustic one, although the other was nice too. The pictures are a little dull. At this point in the day, it was completely cloudy. There were even rain showers on my way there.

Along the traills, I saw a few interesting things. This banded metamorphic rock is really nice. Not sure of the minerals.

This is Oriental Bittersweet. I didn't see a lot of it, thankfully, because it strangles trees and kills them. It's an invasive.

These awesome trees were hugging. The red is an oak (maybe scarlet or pin), and the yellow is a quaking aspen.

So, I got myself back to the car, but with having trouble finding the right parking lot and losing the trail twice, I had to call the dentist and tell them I'd be late. They were gracious.

The stitches are out, and they said it's healing really well. I have to wait until at least January before they can do an implant, so I have that long to decide if I really want it. I think I'm going to miss that tooth a lot, but I'll need to sell a lot of books and do some serious editing to pay for it.

Then... OH! One of my favorite things. I drove home on whatever back road I wanted. The sky cleared and it was a totally stunning day to be out for a rural drive in the fall. I have some pictures I definitly want to share, but they'll need to wait for another day. For today, I'll just share the Beaver Moon, coming up as I was writing this.

Now I have to do some kitchen stuff. And before I left this morning, I managed to fix a problem with my database. Great day!

I have to decide if I can use this hike and Old Grade in my news column. That was my plan, but neither trail is easy to follow. This one is nice in that it's only two miles, but has quite a bit of topography, so you can get some real exercise without a long hike.

Miles hiked in 2025: 429.4

Branstrom Park, Fremont, MI. various trails 2.5 miles

See Exploring Old Grade

WSCC Hike- Try Again

  Today I made sure I had the SD card in the camera and went back out to West Shore Community College to take a walk.

Their nicest trail is a mostly wooded walk around their pond. That's about 3/4 of a mile. This was the view I was willing to go back out there to capture.

There is a nice pavilion with tables and picnic grills in a mowed area near the pond.

At the far end of the loop you cross the marshy area and unnamed creek that feed the pond and flow to the Lincoln River. There is a sturdy boardwalk.

And on the return side, there are some views of the pond through the trees.

You know I'm always trying to catch that perfect pattern on the water. This isn't it, but it's another attempt. You sure never get two alike.

I wanted to walk more than 3/4 of a mile. Again, I took some of the cross-country course, and walked around the disc golf course too.

I picked up a little writing job for a few dollars that I did this morning, and some editing, and laundry, a phone call, and a trip to the post office. The walk and some time on my projects, and there went the day!

Miles walked in 2024: 480.2

West Shore Community College trail and other paths: 3.1 miles

See A Nice Hike at WSCC

A Walk at the Conservation Park

  I really couldn't talk myself into a roadwalk today. The sun was hot and pavement didn't appeal. I had to go to the grocery store anyway, so Cathy and I went to the relatively new Pere Marquette Conservation Park for a walk. It's not much farther of a drive.

If you are local and keeping track, you know that there are huge plans for this property which will make it a recreation mecca. Meanwhile, I think the first thing that's happening is a fishing access on the north side of the river. We were on the south side, and over here, not much has changed yet. The "trails" are old graveled "haul roads," from when this was Dow Chemical property.

Still, they are mostly OK to walk. There was a reasonable amount of shade. This particular location was inviting.

There are views of the south side of Pere Marquette Lake, and the clear air and sun made for beautiful water. The buildings across the way are Oxychem, which used to be Dow. The property for this park, 300 acres, was all purchased from them.

I don't get very excited by deer. They are everywhere. But this lady put on a nice pose, so hey...

There was just a little breeze, but it was enough for this sailboat to be moving along at a steady pace. This is again Pere Marquette Lake.

This is a feature that I enjoy. The bare space at the bottom of this hill is part of what was once the grade of the Mason and Oceana Railroad. It was built for lumber and passenger service, but it never connected with any of the major lines. It ran from Buttersville (the village on this side of Pere Marquette Lake, across from Ludington), through Riverton, Wiley, Crystal Valley, and Walkerville. It's farthest extent was a place long gone called variously, Maple, Maple Range, and Beaver. There were 35 miles of track at its longest. As the lumber era came to an end, so did the railroad. There is a possible plan to make the section of the grade through the park into a multi-use trail.

Now for today's botany. The two single trees in that first picture are Horsechestnuts, Aesculus hippocastanum. There are six leaflets in the palmate leaf. (the sixth one is at the top left, a bit more wilted than the others). Lots of fruits on the ground. There is a spiny nut pod, and then the smooth brown seed inside. I popped a couple out of their shells, and they are right off the tip of the lower right leaflet. You can easily tell Horsechestnut from Ohio Buckeye (Aesculus glabra). B-U-C-K has 4 letters and 5 leaflets. H-O-R-S-E has 5 letters and 6 leaflets. There are usually 1 or 2 shiny brown nuts with the characteristic light spot in each pod.

When I got home from the walk and the store, I made a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner. It just sounded good. And it was. Spent the rest of my time doing dumb stuff that needed to be done. I didn't get to sleep until 4 am- just kept working on a project and didn't want to stop. Consequently, there may be an early bedtime tonight.

Miles walked in 2024: 468.6

Pere Marquette Conservation Park, Ludington, MI. 2.8 miles

See Pere Marquette Conservation Park

Wing Interpretive Trail

 I discovered a new trail in my own county yesterday! Granted, it's not very long, but I'm pretty knowledgeable about such things, so I was surprised. It's located at the county fairgrounds, and called the Wing Interpretive Trail. It's natural surface, shaded for most of it, and has labels for various trees. Only 0.3 miles long. You can close the loop via another 0.1 mile of pavement or turn around and go back for another 0.3 miles. If it's not blastingly hot, you can also walk around the fairgrounds on various unshaded paved paths.

There is a shaded clearing with a bench.

On the walk through the fairgrounds, I saw this nice chainsaw carving of a horsehead by one of the arenas.

There were some pretty plantings, although most are getting past prime now. This yellow butterfly bush with a purple geranium (maybe 'Rozanne') looked good.

A couple of days ago, I made Winter Cobbler (a favorite around here), and I've been eating it for my breakfasts. Very yum. Pears, grapes, apples, touch of orange. Maybe one more pan of it in my future.

In other news: I got up at a good time, worked on necessary tasks all morning. Spent most of the afternoon on the rock garden and plant records. Walked 2.1 miles nearby.

Miles hiked in 2024: 397.7

See Winter and Winter Cobbler

Lehigh Valley Black Diamond Trail

 This morning, Diane and her granddaughter Dani, Marie (yes!), and I headed for a piece of the Black Diamond Trail for a little hike.

And why does it have that name, you ask? It's on the bed of the former Lehigh Valley railroad, in fact, the very piece that ran in back of my farm if they ever manage to extend the trail that far.

So far, they only have about 8 miles of trail. When the Lehigh Valley shut down in 1976, most of the ROW reverted to the owners whose land was crossed. So getting the linear "pathway" back is presenting challenges.

The Black Diamond was the name of the signature passenger train of the LVRR. Here's a picture from about the 1960s, I would guess

The four of us walked two miles out and then turned around. Very level (rail trails are) and easy walking. It was plenty hot, but we were walking at 8:30, so we certainly got out there before it got really hot.

This end of this piece of trail is located at Upper Taughannock Falls, where Elaine and I hiked 12 years ago (wow- how can it be that long ago?). It's hard to believe. This is a "cauldron" of rock where the water spirals down. It's difficult to get a good picture, and the light certainly wasn't right at that time of day.

Here are Marie, Dani, and Diane.

I spent a fair amount of time working on the final edits for the book, and we visited with Dick and Darla. Tomorrow Marie and I head out for our yearly hike.

Miles hiked so far in 2024: 271.1

See Lehigh Valley

An Adventure Day

 Colette invited anyone from our random hiking group, but it turned out to be just three gals: Colette, Sue and me. Our goal was Pyramid Point at Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore. But did we get there in a straight line. No, big NO.

First we made a quick stop at the relatively new Arcadia Marsh boardwalk. We saw over a dozen sandhill cranes, a lot of sunning painted turtles, a muskrat, ducks, trumpeter swans and lots of redwing blackbirds and sparrows.

This post is going to have to be a brief sampler. I chose to share some of the sandhills from that stop.

We had to stop at the Arcadia Bluffs overlook, because who can drive past that on a nice day? This is looking south from the top of the overlook, and the marsh trail we had just walked is down in the valley between this point and the far bluff.

Then we decided to swing in to the Point Betsie Lighthouse since I'd never been there.

OK, we finally made it to the Pyramid Point Trail. Looks harmless enough, right?

It wasn't terribly hilly. Only about 100 feet total elevation change, but the final climb up to Pyramid Point was steep. From Pyramid Point you look out over Lake Michigan from 375 feet above the water. It's considered to have one of the best views of Big and Little Manitou Islands. I didn't do a very good job with pictures of that. I was too focused on the amazing color of the water. But that's Big Manitou on the right side of the picture, and Little on the left.

We had planned to hike the loop trail there after going to the lookout point. This turned out to be the big wonderful surprise of the day. The trail is through rich woodlands and we saw something like 15 species of flowers in bloom, not to mention ones already gone to seed. I'll just share the best (to me).

Jack-in-the-pulpit was everywhere. We weren't sure if we'd ever seen so many in one place. This was my favorite.

I love the yellow lady slipper orchids even more than the pink ones.

Botanically, this was the best find of the day, although there is so much greenery going on that it's hard to know what you are seeing. This is rattlesnake fern, Botrychium virginianum, one of the moonworts. It's the most common of that group, but still a very nice find. It only grows in moist, rich woodlands. It has a Coefficient of Conservatism of 5.

All that, and it's not yet 2 pm. So we went to get some lunch.

Still not satisfied, we hunted up one more little trail that none of us had ever been too. That was a feat in itself because one or the other of us had been to almost every one of the 46 hikes in the Jim DuFresne book of Hikes Along M-22. We found the Portage Point Nature Preserve Trail, which I think has to be relatively new. It was a quick hike of a little more than a mile through more typical dry woods. But it was a great ending to the day. Just to emphasize how interesting the previous trail was, we did not see a single flower blooming along this trail.

Was this the end of our adventures? Well, almost. Colette veered off in Manistee. Then Sue and I stopped to look at plants. Yes I came home with plants. More on that another day.

Now we are at the end. We think the total miles hiked is about 5.5.

Miles hiked so far in 2024: 249.2.

Arcadia Marsh, about 1 mile. Pyramid Point Lookout and Loop, about 2.8 miles. Portage Point, 1.25 miles. Miscellaneous at Betsie and the Bluffs ? But we are calling the total 5.5

See Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge

Summer of 1993 - After Hours

 So, what did I do with myself after the gates to Wetlands Research, Inc. were locked at 6 pm, or on the weekends? Other than making sure I was caught up on my lab tests, I basically did two things.

One, I started a private herbarium, collecting plants. I've since decided I'd rather just take pictures, but it did help me learn a lot. There was plenty of room in my trailer, since I really only lived in one room, and the other room had two long tables. I learned that several years later, this trailer got taken away by a tornado! Maybe I'll show you some of the herbarium another day. Maybe not. I've got another piece of the summer to share yet.

But the primary thing I did in my spare time was take advantage of the Des Plaines River Trail that I've already mentioned.



The northern terminus of the trail was about 4 miles north of where I was located. To the south it stretches through a string of forest preseves that protect about 76% of the river, and connects with the Cook County Forest Preserve. The trail is continuous all the way to Oak Park, IL. (I think- the maps are clunky.)

Anyway, here's what it looked like going south through "our" property. Yes, it's wide and graveled. It's a multi-use path.

This part is flat and open, but it quickly got into the very pleasant oak savannahs I showed you on the day we began this series.

Remember, Chips was a puppy. I was only walking him about 2-3 miles a day. So, I don't think we went more than a couple of miles to the south. But I could never get him tired out. He was a very high-energy dog.

Now we'll switch to a weekend when both Omer and Loretta visited at the same time. Somehow I talked both of them into taking a walk with me on the trail. Of course, Chips went along.

And these pictures are also taken from the trail. The beavers were not content to try to plug up our little culverts. Oh, no! They actually took on the river.

Look at this! They were serious.

So, it was getting on into late July, almost August, and I was determined that I was going to find out what it took to tire this dog. Well, we walked all the way to the northern terminus of the trail and back. Eight miles. He then was perfectly willing to curl up and sleep!

And that's how he became Chips, the hiker dog. I'm sure you've figured out that he was always ready for an adventure. This was his more usual look of the summer- covered in mud and anticipating whatever was going to come next.

There was one other big adventure of that summer. I'll have to scan some more stuff, but it's probably worth showing you.

In other news: I worked super-hard on the campsite section of the trail book. Five hours. My brain is just done, but I accomplished a lot.

See Critters