Barton Nature Area in Ann Arbor is only about 100 acres in size.  It is located on Huron River Drive near the intersection of Main Street and M-14.  Most visitors will approach the park by making a left turn from the actual on-ramp to M-14 onto Huron River Drive and heading west for just a few hundred feet.

There are two main access points to Barton Nature Area.  The first is just a few hundred feet from Main Street.  It is a small parking area that leads to a footbridge over the Huron River.  The second is a larger parking area near Barton Dam, an electricity-producing facility owned by the City of Ann Arbor.

What Barton Park lacks in size, it surely makes up for in quality.  The northern and western sections of Barton Park are shoreline areas on Barton Pond.  The pond is an impoundment on the Huron River that hosts some of the highest-priced homes in the State of Michigan on its north side.

Visitors don’t really get a view of these homes from Barton Park, except a few that poke out from amongst the forest.  Hikers can, however, follow the southern shore of the pond for quite a ways.  The areas farthest to the west are known locally as Foster Park and can only be accessed by hiking along a railroad right-of-way for a bit or via canoe on the pond.  The rewards are several secluded swimming spots with cool rope swings.

Visitors also have the chance to observe Barton Dam.  A causeway offers the opportunity to walk right above the water crashing through the dam’s spillways.  Other viewing areas allow for scenic views and photographs.

As a visitor moves eastward in the park, he will find several trails branching in a chaotic pattern through an area known as “the oxbow.”  This is a flat area filled with vegetation, river views and several miles of great hiking paths.

One should not be surprised to see an Amtrak train speeding through the park.  The tracks in this area carry many passengers to Jackson, Kalamazoo and Chicago.  This actually adds a sense of excitement to an evening hike as the horns blow, the engines charge forward and the squeak of tracks rings against the night sky.

One of the most beautiful views of Ann Arbor can be found in the eastern section of the park.  The pedestrian bridge offers a great view of Barton Nature Area, Bird Hills Park and the Huron River.  It is peaceful, undeveloped and natural in appearance.  I don’t think any spot better exemplifies the quality of life found in Ann Arbor than this spot.  It is not to be missed.  If you get lucky, a team of rowers will pass underfoot from the livery that is found just downstream.

The most important thing to consider when visiting Barton Nature Area is the fact that its trails connect to an entire system of city park trails.  On the northeast side, a hiker can connect to Bandemer and Longshore Parks.  On the west, a hiker has direct trail access to Bird Hills Park.  To the south, a hiker can walk to Bluffs Park and Kuebler-Langford.  The opportunities are almost endless and no hiker should leave for home disappointed in terms of distance.

Enjoy this place.  I certainly have.

This is the official Ann Arbor Parks website for the area.  They supposedly have a pdf map of the park, but there is a broken link.  The next map link shows better detail anyway:

http://www.ci.ann-arbor.mi.us/CommunityServices/Parks/Parkdescriptions/Barton/barton.html

Here’s a non-official map of the park and trails that I picked up during a recent park open house:

http://extremesouthmichigan.blogspot.com/2007/04/barton-park-area-map-ann-arbor.html

This is the Microsoft Virtual Earth view of this location:

http://local.live.com/?v=2&cid=628A87FDBE3AF2A!367&encType=1

Here is a hike report that I posted about the planning process for Huron River Drive:

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/expatriate/?p=181

Here’s a link to a topozone topo quad of the park:

http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=17&n=4687465&e=273036&s=50&size=m

I am excited.  Kathy and I are going to a wedding in Rhode Island this weekend.  It should be a lot of fun.  And I’ve never been to Rhode Island, so I will cross another state off of my list.

Who knows what kind of computer access I’ll have while in America’s smallest state.  I will definitely be back Monday.  Until then…

Happy Hiking!

The Adrian Telegram has an article updating the Burr Ponds Park renovation in the City of Adrian…

http://www.lenconnect.com/articles/2007/09/27/news/news04.txt

The Muskegon Chronicle has a story about Pere-Marquette Beach near Muskegon.  It is the site of a new Jeep video.  Apparently, the beach is rated as one of the top in the country for its wide, expansive views:

http://www.mlive.com/news/chronicle/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1190904535135070.xml&coll=8

The Kalamazoo Gazette reports that South Haven Township is purchasing a 2.1 acre parcel with several hundred feet of Lake Michigan shoreline, about 700 feet of frontage on a trout and smelt creek and access to a shipwreck.  Wow!  That’s some kind of 2.1 acres.  The cost is over $1 million.

http://www.mlive.com/news/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/news-25/1190905549155870.xml&coll=7

The MMBA advocacy forum has an interesting discussion of one aspect of the state budget crunch.  There is a move afoot to raid the Michigan Civilian Conservation Corps endowment.  The endowment is $20 million dollars.  The interest earned each year pays for youth jobs in the state parks.  The minimum wage workers build trails and do other work that park employees cannot do.  The raid would permanently end the program.

http://www.mmba.org/viewtopic.php?t=68226

The Port Huron Daily Herald has a nice article by a member of the St. Clair County parks board explaining why park spending and acquisition is still important during times of fiscal difficulty.  He also has some nuggets of info. about some new parks in St. Clair County.

http://www.thetimesherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070926/OPINION02/709260320/1014/OPINION

The U.S. Forest Service purchased a 1,000 plus acre former Steelcase Co. camp and added it to the Huron-Manistee National Forest.  It is located five miles north of White Cloud, MI.  Read this Detroit Free Press article:

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070920/NEWS06/709200353/1008/NEWS06

Here’s an article from the Traverse City Record Eagle about a new 145 acre natural area in NW lower MI:

http://www.record-eagle.com/local/local_story_263093207.html

This article discusses the Macatawa Greenway near Holland and a near-600 acre conservation area along the Macatawa River:

http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-9/1190529350174330.xml&coll=6

It seems like lifetimes ago, but I once was a resident of Ann Arbor.  It is a great town to live in.  The parks system is incredible.  Natural surface trails loop everywhere in that town.  And city residents seem never to have met a parks millage that they didn’t like.

Of course, I was also busy starting my career as a teacher.  So, I spent a lot of time inside several Ann Arbor area schools.  One of these, Scarlett Middle School, has a neat little natural area to its south.  Nature lovers can find it near the intersection of Platt and Ellsworth in the southeast section of Ann Arbor.

Like many of Ann Arbor’s natural areas, the Scarlett-Mitchell Nature Area is the result of several partnerships.  Some of the land is owned by the Ann Arbor Public Schools.  Some of it is owned by the City of Ann Arbor.  Volunteers spend time pulling invasive plants.  And the teachers at the school take kids to the property for science learning.  It is a beautiful thing.

The area is open to the public.  Be aware that it is the location of a school.  So, the best times to walk the area are on weekends and evenings.

A visitor will find several miles of trail inside the parcel.  This mileage can be extended.  Lillie Park is just to the south along Platt Road.  Several additional parks are close to the west.  With a little creativity, a hiker can get five or ten miles of hiking in the general vicinity.

The Scarlett-Mitchell Nature Area has several environments.  Much of the west side of the property is filled with pleasant wooded areas.  The northeastern sections contain wetlands and several small ponds.  I was actually quite impressed during my several visits to find such a natural area within this largely residential section of town.

I wrote the following about the natural area several years ago:

05/20/03

I continued my survey of Ann Arbor parks tonight after meeting a
friend for dinner. On the east side of Platt Rd. in South Ann Arbor
is a little patch of woods (about 75 acres) called Scarlett-Mitchell
Woods. Half of the woods are owned by the Ann Arbor Public Schools,
half by the Parks Dept. I started in a small parking lot at the
side of Scarlett Middle School - a place at which I once did
volunteer work.

The trails that I hiked are kind of like the way a child would draw
the sun. There is a big loop with short trails leading straight out
to the borders of the area. These short spurs often lead to nearby
subdivisions. One leads the the I-94 right-of-way. Scenery is not
too bad for a neighborhood natural area. There are several swamps
and marshy lakes. There are some hills and trails that vary from
wide paths to skinny singletrack. The wildflowers were in bloom and
the noise from nearby freeways was always within earshot. I scared
two families of geese.

One spur trail seemed particularly intriguing. Unlike the others,
it seemed to have real purpose. I was running out of light after a
couple of miles, so I could not pursue it. Looking at a map, it
appears to link into Turnberry Park which is listed as having nature
trails. Additional parks in the area seem to have potential for a
linked hike. There is a short sidewalk route to Lillie Township
Park, for example and several miles of paths. Also, there is a
chain of parks to the west of Platt that contain about 500 acres
with Scarlett-Mitchell included. I would not be surprised if there
is a good extended hike in this area.

The Scarlett-Mitchell Nature Area demonstrates what a community can create with a small natural space.  And when connected by trail to other small urban natural areas, the results are amazing.

This is the official Ann Arbor Parks map of the nature area:

http://tinyurl.com/3besgp

I also placed the land boundary onto Microsoft maps:

http://maps.live.com/?v=2&cid=628A87FDBE3AF2A!365&encType=1

The Grand Rapids Press has a good article about community concerns regarding the Meijer/Standale railtrail in Walker, MI…

http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-38/1190728598283750.xml&coll=6

The Windsor Star has an editorial that focuses on the “problem” of cormorants on Middle Island, a unit of Point Pelee National Park that sits in Lake Erie.

http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/news/editorial/story.html?id=9a8c3ac4-4cd6-4825-850a-8cc169b6ba2d

The 9/26 edition of the Detroit News has info. about the newest Oakland County Park:

Highland Twp.: Park to be dedicated

Oakland County Parks will dedicate its newest park, Highland Oaks, with a small ceremony at 11 a.m. Friday that will include county dignitaries and planting of several native plants. The 264-acre park on Milford Road at White Lake Road was purchased earlier this year for $3.3 million with funds from the state and parks system. Highland Oaks, the county’s 13th park, opens to the public Monday. A formal trail system isn’t in place yet, but the park will be open for bow hunting.

This is the actual link:

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070926/METRO02/709260355/1009/rss02

The Monroe Evening News reports that Milan is hosting a fitness and history walk this Saturday.  Click below for more details…

http://www.monroenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070925/NEWS01/109250039/-1/RSSNEWS

Whiteford Township is building several new ballfields at the township’s newest park.  I’ll have to check this one out to see if there are any trails:

http://www.monroenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070925/NEWS01/109250040/-1/RSSNEWS

The monroetalks forums has a small discussion about a new park next to the Ash Township hall:

http://www.monroetalks.com/forum/index.php?topic=924.0

Here’s a listing of “Custer Week” events.  Of special note is this Sunday’s tour of Woodland Cemetary in Monroe.  The tour starts at 1PM:

http://tinyurl.com/26mqlk

The Jackson Citizen Patriot has a nice article about Michigan’s only rattlesnake.  It was found in 27 counties during the last survey…

http://www.mlive.com/news/citpat/index.ssf?/base/news-22/119072923536500.xml&coll=3

Congressman John Dingell will propose a carbon tax on Thursday.

I like the man’s style.  He’s trying to get a wide discussion on greenhouse gas pollutants rather than the current myopic focus on auto emissions.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070924/UPDATE/709240448/1003/rss36

Lake Hudson State Recreation Area in Lenawee County has always been something of a puzzle for me.  There are no official trails in the park.  Most people just walk along the paved roads in the developed areas.  You can read a previous blog post about those routes here:

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/expatriate/?p=258

The developed areas, however, only take up a small portion of the park’s land.  That leaves miles of shoreline, several small ponds and some rolling terrain to explore.

Some of the land is impassable.  I don’t enjoy hiking through uncharted swamp or thick brush.  So, for me, the key is finding a route along the lake that is scenic and open enough to hike in an enjoyable manner.

On Sunday, I decided to check out one of the old two tracks that enter the state recreation area from the north.  There are several of these that lead south towards the lake from Tomer Road.  The one that I chose had a small DNR parking area with a self-service pay box.

The path south is an old two-track that totals between a half mile and 0.75 miles in length.  The route passes between two cornfields that the DNR leases to local farmers.  These fields presumably provide cover and feed for deer.

Once the two-track ends, there is a walkable field edge that carries a hiker to the north side of Lake Hudson.

Once at the lake, the hiker has several options from this spot.  To the west, a walker can continue to follow the corn rows and field edges, catching an occasional opening to the lake.

To the east, a walker begins to head into a wooded area.  I walked several hundred feet in the easterly direction and found the shoreline forest to be reasonably hikeable.  There is not a good path along the waters-edge.  And there are occasional thickets that must be avoided.  However, the understory in the woods was quite open.

One possible obstacle in this area was not a problem during this visit.  There were several stream beds that were quite dry on Sunday.  I passed them with little danger of be swallowed by muck.  However, this area was quite buggy.  And during periods of rain, this might be a treacherous area.

I decided to cut my walk a bit short after I noticed some youth hunters in the woods.  I didn’t want to ruin their fun, so I headed back after just a few miles.

My ultimate goal is to develop a decent hiking route that circles the lake.  I’d at least like to get some routes of four or five miles together.  Given the four or five access paths that I have seen or hiked from the north in the past, I’d expect the latter to be possible with an extension of my Sunday hike to the east or west.

Again, this hike was more exploratory than anything else.  To check out my route, click below:

http://maps.live.com/?v=2&cid=628A87FDBE3AF2A!361&encType=1

Several years ago, I went for a little hike at Greenwood Park in the City of Toledo.  The park has several features that interested me from studying the maps.  First, there is a nice stream in the park.  It also is a fairly large chunk of publicly-accessible and forested real estate.

So, I drove to the park entrance on the east side of Jackman Road, almost immediately south of the Michigan/Ohio border.

Here is my report from that time:

Greenwood Park is bordered by Jackman Rd. on the West, Lewis Ave. on the east, Alexis on the south and a stream on the north.  The park provides several miles of trail in a floodplain area.  The trail is not maintained and is very rough and muddy.  One small ravine had a rickety wood plank as a makeshift crossing.  Still the stream is very nice with a little rapids at one point.  I probably will not go back here unless I’m in the neighborhood.  There is some urban blight on this hike.

This is one of those places with some potential.  A stream like that CAN make for a wonderful urban walk.  But I got the distinct feeling that the park was not completely safe.  Given some of the places that I’ve hiked, that kind of takes a lot.  Still, with a little bit of TLC, this could be a very nice place.

The online mapping software shows two very different images of the park.  The Microsoft Virtual Earth shows the summer shot with trees.  The trees obscure the stream.  Click below:

http://local.live.com/?v=2&cid=628A87FDBE3AF2A!363&encType=1

The Google Earth image is a winter shot and much better to understand the stream course in the park.  Click below:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=greenwood+park+toledo&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=41.726647,-83.576131&spn=0.014189,0.028925&t=h&z=15&om=1

I can really only recommend this place for near-in residents and birders looking to add to a Toledo or Lucas County list.

The Detroit News reports this Livingston County factoid:

Genoa Township

Trustees OK athletic field, path proposals

The Board of Trustees approved this week a construction proposal from Fonson Construction and an engineering services proposal from Tetra Tech to construct athletic fields and install a paved walking path on the Township Hall property. The total cost is not to exceed $321,400.

The Detroit Free Press has an interview of Liz Elling, the woman who swam the length of the Huron River…

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070922/TWIST01/709230317/1118/RSS