The Sinkholes Pathway and karst country

Out in the state forest in the southwest corner of the county is some of the strangest ground in Michigan. Beneath the soil here is soft limestone, and over thousands of years underground streams have dissolved it into caves — and when those caves collapse, they leave deep, funnel-shaped pits in the forest floor called sinkholes. The Sinkholes Pathway, a two-mile loop near Shoepac Lake, takes you right around five of them, with a stairway down to a viewing platform where you can peer into one.

Shoepac Lake itself is a sinkhole that filled with water; nearby there are dry sinkholes you can walk down into. It’s a quiet, almost eerie place — you can hike for an hour and hear nothing but the wind. The pathway connects to the much longer High Country Pathway for anyone who wants a bigger trek, and there are rustic state forest campgrounds at Shoepac and Tomahawk lakes.

This pathway sits inside northern Lower Michigan’s broad karst country, where groundwater has dissolved layers of limestone, salt, and gypsum and left collapse features across several counties. For buyers, the southwest townships are deep-woods country — lots of state land, small lakes, and real solitude, far from the busier northern routes. The DNR’s Shoepac Lake page links the current trail and campground information.