Onekama Township Parks

One of the things you can do for the Onekama Challenge is visit all 7 Onekama Township Parks to get a sticker. Today, Cathy and I went and did that. There were places you could hike/walk at 3 of them.

First we went to John Langland Park which is where the channel from Portage Lake enters Lake Michigan. There is a short accessable walkway to the beach, but by hiking a little extra down to a public access point we were able to hike along the channel to the light on the north breakwall.

I do love these Lake Michigan pictures with nothing but sky and water.

There were ducks alongside the breakwall. Mama merganser...

And a raft of teenagers trailing her.

Then we went to North Point Park where there were also hiking trails. Part were paved for accessibiltiy, and part were dirt surface. One short loop was gravel. A nice feature there was a garden of native plants that are labeled in Braille, Anishinaabemowin, Spanish, and English. Most of the plants are very new or gone. Hopefully it will be maintained. That had 2 miles of trails, and they were fine, but my favorites were the lakeside one above, and the next one.

There was a mile of trail at Glen Park. This is the site of a mineral spring where a grand hotel was built in the late 1800s. The waters were considered restorative, and people traveled from all over to visit. Here is Cathy on a bridge over the creek.

Several places in the creek still have these ceramic tiles sunk in them to contain pools of the mineral water. And these three are under a shelter to help preserve them. I sampled the water, and yup, it has that oily, mineral taste.

Of course the hotel burned long ago, and we couldn't even figure out where it had been. This park had the most primitive trail and the most topography.

After we visited all seven (two of them we barely got out of the car because it was just a matter of taking a picture of a sign for wetland preserves- but it was good to know the township is preserving a fair amount of wetlands), we went for ice cream. Came home, did a few errands, voted. Oh yeah, I got laundry on the line before we left this morning. I had a Zoom event at 6 pm, but I forgot. Hopefully it was recorded.

Miles walked in 2026: 277.2
Onekama Challenge: 89.0 miles

Onekama Township, Michigan, John Langland Park, Glen Park, and North Point Park trails. Total 4.1 miles

See Portage Lake- A Brief Glimpse