Oct 25 2007
Pierce Lake County Park: Chelsea
A couple of nights ago, I set out with some intention of visiting the Stinchfield Woods near the Pinckney State Recreation Area. However, as I was passing through Chelsea, I noticed the sign for Pierce Lake County Park.
I’ve probably passed the park a thousand times. And I’ve always written it off because of the golf course at the park. I’m just not a golf course kind of guy. My golf career lasted exactly one day. I played a scramble with some other teachers. We used my ball once, on a putt. That was it for me.
Anyway, I decided to stop in and see if there were any trails. And I found some.
Now, understand that this is not a great place to hike. The trail inside the park is only about two-thirds of a mile in length. And this is a point-to-point trail, so you have to hike everything twice.
The lack of a circle route is especially disappointing because Pierce Lake is not a bad lake. It has some good birdlife, nice woodlands and interesting vegetation. The big subdivision and condo complex doesn’t help much, but it’s not a bad place.
The trail is actually a bit hilarious. It starts at the golf club parking lot and follows the lake east. In only a few hundred feet of boardwalk, there are five or ten wildlife viewing benches and overlooks. Why there is a need for this many on such a short trail is beyond me.
The golf course, of course, adds more hilarity. There is just something about watching well-dressed people careening by in the golf carts that is really pretty silly.
The last section of the trail passes right next to the back yards of VERY EXPENSIVE homes and condos. I, personally, love the fact that there is a trail easement here, but you do get the distinct feeling that the people in the housing complex don’t really want any visitors there.
Luckily, the Pierce Lake Trail pops out onto East Old US-12. This means that the trail can be connected to a Chelsea urban hike via city sidewalks or pathways through the Chelsea Community Hospital.
All in all, this is not much of a trail to write home about. But it makes for some interesting possibilities in the City of Chelsea.
I don’t know of any good maps of this place, so here is my rough map on Virtual Earth: