Topic
The Great Outdoors
From Great Lakes shoreline to waterfalls, trails, state parks, and quiet two-tracks, Michigan was made for getting outside. These notes connect the outdoor places to the communities around them.
Porch Notes
The Great Outdoors notes
- A 135-acre nature center remembers a teenager who loved the land Frank and Rita Christensen gave 135 acres in Tyrone Township for a nature center honoring their son Howard; its trails and programs continue amid a 2026 ownership transition.
- A 50-acre gift grew into Alpine Township's Wahlfield trail park Kent County's Wahlfield Park began with a 50-acre family gift in 1983 and now covers about 280 acres of woods, fields, creek valley, and trails.
- A waste-facility agreement helped build Granger Meadows DeWitt Township's 76-acre Granger Meadows Park grew from a host-community agreement and was donated with its improvements in 2005.
- An 11,000-acre wastewater plant became a birding hotspot The Muskegon County treatment landscape spanning Egelston and Moorland townships uses lagoons and crop fields while hosting at least 256 bird species.
- Buell Lake Park pairs fishing with model airplanes Thetford Township's 213-acre county park combines a no-wake lake, a one-mile trail, disc golf, and a dedicated field for radio-controlled model airplanes.
- Crahen Valley puts 210 wooded acres beside Grand Rapids Grand Rapids Township's Crahen Valley Park holds ravines, hardwood forest, ponds, meadows, and about three miles of trails just beyond the city.
- Lowell Township's riverfront park reaches both sides of the Grand North and South Riverfront parks form one roughly 107-acre township park, joined across the Grand River by the Lowell Timber Footbridge.
- Lyon Oaks saves 800 wet acres beside the regional trail Lyon Oaks County Park protects 800 acres of wetlands within a 1,041-acre park, with six miles of natural trails and a connection to the Huron Valley Trail.
- Pennfield's park plan became a half-mile walking loop Pennfield now has a dawn-to-dusk walking park beside Hicks Cemetery, with a half-mile path, pavilion, benches, grills, and room for a quiet lap.
- Pittsfield preserved 535 acres across two watersheds Pittsfield Township bought a 535-acre landscape in 2002 that straddles the Huron and River Raisin watersheds and protects wetlands, woods, prairie, and a heron colony.
- Salem Township turned 235 farm acres into walking country The Salem Township Farm Preserve keeps 235 acres of rolling farmland open with marked walking paths, alongside two smaller woodland and wetland preserves.
- Scout projects added fitness stations and disc golf to Salem Township Park Salem Township Park combines courts, fields, a three-quarter-mile nature trail, fitness stations, and disc golf built through grants, donations, and local Scout projects.
- Searles Preserve keeps 48 acres wild in Augusta Township Searles Nature Preserve protects forest, shrub-carr wetlands, and the headwaters of Stoney Creek on 48.3 acres in Augusta Township.
- Superior Township is building a 320-acre preserve and farm Superior Township is turning more than 320 acres into BirdSong Nature Preserve and a community farm through a phased restoration plan.
- The bike trail that shadows M-6 across southern Kent County The Fred Meijer M-6 Trail links Kent Trails in Wyoming to the Paul Henry-Thornapple Trail in Kentwood, creating a paved east-west route across the south side of the Grand Rapids area.
- The Clinton River starts as a web, not a line Main, Middle, North, Stony, Paint, and Red Run branches connect Oakland and Macomb communities before the Clinton reaches Lake St. Clair.
- The Genesee Valley Trail ties Flint Township to the city A paved trail runs from Flint Township's park and commercial corridor toward Flint, where it links into the larger Flint River Trail system.
- The Rouge is four rivers hiding under one name The Rouge River has four major branches and 127 river miles, tying together parks and neighborhoods across Oakland, Wayne, and Washtenaw counties.
- The shortcut river built to hold back floods The Army Corps built the 2.5-mile Clinton River Spillway in 1950 to send floodwater toward Lake St. Clair before it reached Mount Clemens.
- Two Northfield preserves protect 351 acres of woods and old fields Northfield Woods and Arbor Woods combine 351 acres of forest, vernal ponds, farmland, and former fields being restored to grassland and wetlands.
- Vergennes's 141-acre outdoor classroom anchors a community trail The Wittenbach/Wege Center combines school field trips, public trails, natural habitat, and a community garden at the north end of the Lowell area's trail system.
- Wabasis Lake Park started with 38 acres and a vanished cave Kent County's Oakfield Township park grew from a wooded 1930 purchase with a spring, overlook, limestone cave, and a local treasure legend into a 104-acre lakefront campground.
- Williamstown's community park grew through volunteers and 520 young trees Williamstown Township turned 139 acres along the Red Cedar River into sports fields, trails, prairie, and a young woodland shaped by grants, donations, and volunteer work.
- 28 miles of dirt for motorcycles north of Holton The Holton Motorcycle Trail runs 28 miles through pine and oak in the Manistee National Forest — half of it open to off-highway dirt bikes, the other half for street-legal motorcycles only.
- 3,400 acres of game country that hunters paid for The Vassar State Game Area covers about 3,400 acres of woods and Cass River bottomland — nearly all of it bought with hunters' own dollars, from license fees and a federal tax on firearms.
- A 1927 golf course on the shore of Lake Nepessing Lapeer Country Club has played golf on the same ground since 1927, its fairways laid out over 150 acres of greens and pines overlooking Lake Nepessing just west of town.
- A 1938 WPA footbridge still hangs over the Flint River at Richfield Park Richfield County Park started Genesee County's park system in 1935, and its Depression-era suspension footbridge — hung from fieldstone towers over the Flint River — still carries walkers today.
- A 37-mile paddle that earned a state designation The Cass River Water Trail runs about 37.5 miles from above Vassar down to the Saginaw River, with rapids near Vassar and roughly 13 launch sites, and is a state-designated Pure Michigan Water Trail.
- A 47-mile trail laid over the rails that hauled the iron The Iron Ore Heritage Trail runs 47 miles across the Marquette Iron Range, much of it on old railroad grades, from Republic through Negaunee, Ishpeming, and Marquette Township toward Lake Superior.
- A Flushing subdivision that never got built is now 130 acres of riverfront trails Flushing Township Nature Park — roughly 130 acres of boardwalk, trails, and an observation deck on the Flint River — was platted for houses until a township supervisor suggested making it a park in 1992.
- A hill of 3,000 dahlias that started with a Mother's Day gift Dahlia Hill is a terraced Midland garden where volunteers plant about 3,000 dahlias each spring, grown from one art teacher's accidental obsession.
- A lumber boomtown buried under the dunes Port Crescent State Park's beach and forested dunes sit on top of a vanished lumber town — and a 120-foot brick sawmill chimney still stands among the campsites.
- A lumber-camp dam that became a 2,500-acre hunting ground Murphy Lake near Millington was widened in the 1850s by a dam built to float logs; today the state game area around it spreads across roughly 2,500 acres of woods, marsh, and small lakes.
- A patch of sky dark enough to be protected Port Crescent State Park near Port Austin is a state-designated dark sky preserve, with a viewing platform set far from the parking lot for stargazing over Lake Huron.
- A road course on an old Christmas-tree farm in Grattan Township Grattan Raceway, a two-mile road course in rural Grattan Township, has hosted sports-car racing since the early 1960s and drawn names like Paul Newman to its turns.
- A rock garden built stone by stone by a botany professor Slayton Arboretum at Hillsdale College grew from a 14-acre 1922 gift into a hand-built landscape of rock gardens, waterfalls, and an amphitheater carved out of an old gravel pit.
- A working farm and a raptor house inside the suburbs of Troy The Lloyd A. Stage Nature Center keeps 100 acres of meadow, marsh, and forest — plus a barn of non-releasable hawks and owls — wild in the middle of one of metro Detroit's busiest suburbs.
- About 16,700 acres of public wildlife land The DNR currently lists the Gratiot-Saginaw State Game Area at 16,684 acres, a broad patchwork of forest, openings, and wetlands along the county line.
- Al Sabo: 25 miles of trail sitting on top of Kalamazoo's drinking water The Al Sabo Land Preserve in Texas Township is a 700-plus-acre nature area built to guard the wellfield that supplies Kalamazoo's drinking water, with 25 miles of trail laced over the wellheads.
- Algonac throws a party for a fish Every summer the river town of Algonac fills its waterfront for the Lions Pickerel Tournament and Festival, an event built around the walleye the locals have always called pickerel.
- Ambrose Lake: a hand-pump well and 25 sites in the state forest Eleven miles north of West Branch, Ambrose Lake State Forest Campground offers 25 rustic sites on a quiet lake, with vault toilets, a hand-pumped well, and trails close by.
- An old farm that grew its wetlands back Forest Hill Nature Area north of Alma is a 90-acre former farm where a conservation district and a school agency rebuilt the wetlands and opened the trails to anyone, free.
- Apple Island: the uninhabited island that named Orchard Lake A 35-acre island in the middle of Orchard Lake gave the lake its name; the Ottawa called it 'the place of the apples,' and today it's a school-owned nature sanctuary.
- Armada's county fair, running since the 1870s The Armada Fair has filled this small northern Macomb County village every August since the 1870s — its 154th edition runs in 2026, making it one of Michigan's longest-running fairs.
- Around Evart, the Muskegon River is smallmouth water The Muskegon River bends through Evart at the upper end of a warmwater reach where Michigan DNR found self-sustaining smallmouth bass and moderate walleye populations.
- Au Gres: a French name for sandstone, and a walleye port on Saginaw Bay Au Gres takes its name from French voyageurs who called the sandy point 'aux grès,' for sandstone — and today its river mouth is a busy walleye and perch port on Saginaw Bay.
- Bass River: the gravel pits that grew back into a wild place Bass River Recreation Area in Ottawa County reclaimed an old field of gravel pits along the Grand River into miles of trails for hiking, biking, and horseback riding.
- Below Croton Dam: access, current, and the fishing calendar The Croton tailwater is moving river below a hydro dam, with a steep launch, accessible shore fishing, strong current, and seasonal salmon, steelhead, trout, walleye, and bass.
- Blandford Nature Center: 264 wooded acres a museum lecturer talked into existence A 264-acre nature center on the west side of Grand Rapids that grew from a 17-acre family gift, the doing of one persistent museum naturalist, Mary Jane Dockeray.
- Bluebell Beach: a county lake beach with the area's first splash pad Bluebell Beach on Mott Lake, run by Genesee County Parks northeast of Flint, has a sand swimming beach, the area's first splash pad, and a connection to the Flint River Trail.
- Bowman Lake: a three-acre lake you have to walk to A quiet 1,145-acre tract of national forest in Lake County built around a three-acre kettle lake, laced with 7.5 miles of foot trail and four walk-in campsites.
- Cadillac's Sound Garden, where you play the sculptures A small riverside park on Cadillac's west side is filled with big outdoor instruments visitors can actually play, plus thousands of daffodils and a boardwalk over the water.
- Charity Island: a 1857 lighthouse and a bird sanctuary out in Saginaw Bay Big Charity Island sits alone in the middle of Saginaw Bay with an 1857 lighthouse, and most of it is now a national wildlife refuge where colonial waterbirds nest by the thousands.
- Charles Mears State Park: a daughter's gift of beach The Lake Michigan beach park at Pentwater began in 1920 when Carrie Mears deeded her late father's shoreline to the state — named for the lumberman who dug the channel beside it.
- Coldwater Lake Family Park: an all-sports lake near Weidman Isabella County's Coldwater Lake Family Park sits on an all-sports lake near Weidman, with a sandy beach, nearly 100 campsites, rustic cabins, and accessible launches and walkways.
- Columbus County Park: 411 acres of 'up north' an hour from Detroit Tucked into rural Columbus Township, this 411-acre county park gives the Belle River a mile and a half of frontage and laces rolling woods and prairie with trails for bikes, boots, and horses.
- Connor Bayou: a mile of boardwalk over the Grand River's backwater Connor Bayou in Robinson Township carries a riverfront boardwalk along the Grand River's wetlands, with an overlook deck, a kayak launch, and remnant prairie.
- Coolbough Natural Area: oak savanna kept alive for a thumbnail-sized butterfly A 400-acre preserve near Newaygo protects a rare oak savanna and the wild lupine that the federally endangered Karner blue butterfly needs to survive — the only plant its caterpillars will eat.
- Crane's of Fennville: an apple orchard that started selling pie to survive Crane's Pie Pantry in Fennville grew out of a Depression-survival idea — sell the pie, not just the apples — on an orchard the Crane family has farmed since 1917.
- Dahlem: 300 acres of woods that pay no taxes and ask nothing of you A nearly 300-acre nature preserve on the south edge of Jackson, with five miles of trails and a barrier-free path, run entirely on donations rather than tax dollars.
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