Trip Outline and Highlights:
This trip mainly served as a quick overnight trip to try out the closest trails to Ann Arbor, MI as well as just to test out some of our gear in colder fall temps. The closeness of the Waterloo State Recreation Area was a comfort in case the weather took a turn for the worse.
The access to this trail is very easy off I-94. On Friday Night, we dropped our car off at Green Lake Campground off M-52. The only fee for the car parking was to have the Michigan Recreation Pass for the vehicle. This was where we planned to end on Sunday. My sister was kind enough to drive us over to Portage Lake State Park for Friday night. The trail starts here from the campground.
I am not sure if you can camp at Portage Lake after the State Park is closed, but since it was open we did have to pay full price for the campsite despite having no vehicle. This is an easy place to start, but you should plan on sharing the campground with most RV's and 5th Wheels. We were the only ones in a tent.
Day 1:
After paying the fee for the site in the morning. We hiked off to the start of the trail. Since the trail weaves in and out of some private land, there was a notice that some of the trail is near hunting zones. We checked with the DNR and in October, only certain game and no rifles are allowed. Deer season starts Nov. 15th in Michigan. I don't recommend backpacking past that post. As a precaution, we elected to wear some blaze orange.
The weather was sunny, but chilly around 40F. The trail crosses several back and dirt roads, but in general is very flat and easy.
Around 10 miles around the trail there are some new "walk-in-only" sites that are free and would have been more private than staying at Portage Lake. I would recommend calling the DNR to get more details are whether these sites are still maintained going forward.
The other reason where this site is important to know about is that the "rustic camping" marked on the map is rusting camping, but is really a horse camp. Although we were made an exception, in general you are supposed to be with a horse to camp here. If we were doing this again, would would have better laid out the trip to allow for camping somewhere else instead. The site was huge however, and even had a fire pit so we could warm-up and dry out any sweaty items.
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| A view of the beautiful (but cool) October Day on the trail. |
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| It was nice when we would see these signs along the trail. Most of it was a shooting free zone since horses are also allowed on the trail. |
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| Sporting the blaze orange hat. |
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| Here I am drying out my socks over the fire. |
Day 2:
Brrrr, this was the first test of how well the gear does in freezing temps. There was frost on the ground when we woke up. I was thankful to have packed my new down RAB jacket. We had to continue that rest of the 8 miles to the car at Green Lake.
There's a Discovery trail and Learning Center over on this section of the trail. There was quite a bit of information on the wildlife in this area. This section of the trail must have been slightly more popular as we saw a few other hikers. (Yesterday we only encountered people on horseback.) We finished up the trail in the early afternoon. The final miles were really quick due to the good trail conditions and the flat terrain. All in all it was a nice final trip for the year!
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| Here's the trail map of the section we covered. Around 22 miles. |
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| End of the trip pic! |
