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The Ludington Daily News has a story and video related to a controlled burn near the Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness Area in the Manistee National Forest.  Excerpt and link:

Fire control staffers are conducting a 968-acre burn in Grant Township today. The controlled-burn is designed to reduce fuels on the ground in the Manistee National Forest south of Lake Michigan Drive and east of Green Road. The fire was lit by drip torches and a helicopter dropping ping-pong balls filled with potassium permangate injected with ethylene glycol.

http://www.ludingtondailynews.com/news.php?story_id=39915

The Marquette Mining Journal has a story about a grant to help restore the Marquette Harbor Lighthouse:

The museum was recently awarded a $296,000 “Save America’s Treasures Initiative” grant that it will use to renovate the Marquette Harbor Lighthouse. Included in the project will be restoration of the second floor of the lighthouse to what it looked like in 1910 when Otto lived there while he was second assistant to the lightkeeper.

The current lighthouse was built in 1866 and a second story was added in 1909. The lighthouse played a vital role for the area during the mining boom of the late 19th and early 20th century.

“Because of the relationship of the harbor lighthouse to the iron ore trade — for many years Marquette being the premiere iron ore port on the Great Lakes — that was the vital single aid in navigation on the Great Lakes for those ore freighters, coming and going,” Stonehouse said.

http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/507926.html

The Port Huron Times Herald has a story about the museum ship, the Bramble:

It took more than 60 years for the Bramble to end up where it is. In 1943, the Zenith Dredge Co. built the ship in Duluth, Minn., and it was commissioned by the Coast Guard on April 22, 1944.

In the second half of the 20th century, the Bramble helped make history.

From July to October 1947, the ship participated in tests determining an atomic bomb’s effect on ships. Called “Operation Crossroads,” the Bramble sat 20 miles away from a detonation site and had to be extensively scrubbed after the tests because of the atomized steam that settled on the ship.

In 1957, the Bramble became one of the first surface ships to circumnavigate North America.

On the trip, sailors lounged on Florida beaches; cut through the Panama Canal; coasted around Alaska; broke through Arctic Ice on the Beaufort Sea; and made it back home again within about four months.

The Bramble finally settled in Port Huron in Sept. 1975, after a major renovation involving rebuilding engines and modernization.

Aside from its normal duties — aiding navigation, search and rescue and icebreaking — the ship enjoyed a settled life in the Great Lakes.

It made one last hurrah when, for about five months in 1987, the ship performed law enforcement duties in the Caribbean, at one point seizing a vessel with three people and 50 tons of marijuana aboard.

The Bramble is one of the museum’s four sites and is open seasonally for tours. The first tours of the year were given Thursday.

http://tinyurl.com/5qxm2p

The Port Huron Museum has just acquired an anchor from one of Roald Amundsen’s ships:

It’s not just any anchor. It’s an anchor that came from one of Roald Amundsen’s boats, the Gjoa.

Amundsen was the first person to reach both the north and south poles, as well as to traverse the Northwest Passage, a waterway that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

“It’s a small anchor,” Zembala said. “It was a small boat.”

While traversing the Northwest Passage, Amundsen dropped the anchor the Bramble’s crew picked up — more than 50 years later.

The anchor, which weighs about 50 pounds, is being sent to Port Huron by Coast Guard historian Jeff Bowdoin.

Bowdoin approached Zembala last fall about the anchor and Zembala jumped at the chance to procure the artifact. It has been kept for several years by Coast Guard historians and is not believed to have been on display.

http://tinyurl.com/6k6tkv

The Traverse City Record Eagle reports that lighthouse keepers are needed on the Old Mission Peninsula in NW Lower Michigan:

Since January, the township has coordinated with lighthouse officials across the bay to solicit volunteers to work at the 19th century structure when it opens to the public for the first time in May, said Fred Stoye, chairman of the township park board.

“There are very few places in Michigan that allow you to live in a lighthouse,” said Grand Traverse Lighthouse director Stef Staley, who’s accepting applications for the Mission Point program.

Located on M-37 at the tip of Old Mission Peninsula, the lighthouse was built in 1870, and its first keeper, Jerome M. Pratt, guided boat traffic into Grand Traverse Bay by a kerosene lamp atop the 30-foot building.

Volunteers will be charged an $800-per-month program fee to live in the rear section of the historic home’s ground floor. The township hopes those funds, along with admissions fees for visitors, will be the first step toward a self-supporting park system.

http://tinyurl.com/6gb8y6

The Bay City Times reports on a long-term plan to create a maritime heritage center in Bay City:

“We’ve been a world port since 1865,” the Bangor Township resident said. “For all of these years, ships from all over the world have been coming to our port city. We don’t want to lose sight of the heritage that we have.”

The proposed maritime heritage center would grace the northern 9 acres of the Uptown at RiversEdge site on Bay City’s East Side. Last August, the Bay City Commission awarded an option to purchase the land to the organization Tall Ship Celebration: Bay City.

The maritime heritage center is expected to include a combination of buildings that will support different functions, such as a boat building and repair shop, blacksmith shop, rope-making facility, sail-making loft, gift shop, restaurant and a host of other activities.

http://tinyurl.com/68z3lo

The Leelanau Enterprise reports that the harsh winter caused a Wisconsin buoy to float all the way to Michigan:

Ammons said a red nun buoy and a green buoy were found this spring along the waterfront in Leelanau Township, near Gills Pier. Each weighs and estimated 400 pounds and are believed to have broken away from their concrete moorings in Lake Michigan near Sturgeon Bay, Wis., about 30 miles west, and come to rest on the Leelanau Peninsula.

http://tinyurl.com/56q2jm

The Booth News Service has a story about three Michigan lighthouses that have been turned into Bed & Breakfast inns:

http://tinyurl.com/69jay3

The Great Lakes Memorial and Museum in Muskegon is being renovated according to the Muskegon Chronicle:

The Great Lakes Memorial and Museum’s new channelside facility in Muskegon is starting to lose its “industrial marine” look, now that exterior work has picked up.

Window openings are appearing here and there in the building’s mariner blue sides and an arched brick entrance way is taking shape. Which is giving the two story, 16,500-square-foot structure more of the appearance of a public building devoted to the history of ships and the sea, and particularly that of the World War II USS Silversides floating out front.

During 14 war patrols in the Pacific during the war, Silversides sank 23 ships, the third-highest total of enemy ships sunk by a U.S. submarine during the war. It has been undergoing restoration in Muskegon since being towed here from Chicago’s Navy Pier in 1987.

The museum will feature a large open display area covering much of the ground floor. Elsewhere there will be offices, classrooms, a 72-seat movie theater, a research library and computer lab, conference and banquet areas, and staging areas and restrooms to accommodate those touring or staying overnight aboard the Silversides and the USCGC McLane docked behind it.

The Navy Sea Cadet Progrm and the Muskegon Power Squadron also will have their own meeting and office space.

Future plans include a projects dedicated to naval submarining in World War I, a tall ships project, a “Submarine Attack” ride, a Japanese Peace Gardena Golden Dolphin Cafe, andexpanded education and Sea Cadet programs.

http://tinyurl.com/5nxoaz

The AP has a story about the Griffin, the oldest shipwreck on the Great Lakes.  It is embroiled in a legal controversy over ownership and salvage rights:

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — A federal appeals court Tuesday ruled that the federal government should have authority for now over a Lake Michigan shipwreck that could be The Griffin, a 17th century vessel built by the French explorer La Salle.

Great Lakes Exploration Group LLC wants the federal government to have jurisdiction but to appoint the company as custodian until the courts determine who has ownership and salvage rights. The company says the French government may want to submit a claim.

The Griffin (also spelled “Griffon”) disappeared on its maiden voyage in 1679 after setting sail from an island near Green Bay, Wis., with a crew of six and a cargo of furs and other goods. It’s believed to have sunk in northern Lake Michigan.

Great Lakes Exploration’s president is Steve Libert of McLean, Va., who says he has been searching 30 years for The Griffin. He describes it as a “time capsule” that would provide valuable information about early French exploration of the region.

Libert refuses to disclose the exact site of the wreckage, saying he doesn’t want to tip off looters and sport divers who might damage it. He wants a promise from the state that he can stay involved as the wreckage is studied and take part in decisions about what to do with it.

His company in 2004 asked Bell to put the federal government in charge. Bell ordered the company to reveal the location so the state could investigate and decide whether to claim ownership.

http://www.woodtv.com/global/story.asp?s=8211541

The Muskegon Chronicle has a story about another Lake Michigan shipwreck, the Hamilton:

The final voyage of the 19th century two-masted schooner Hamilton started like so many others, departing Muskegon with a load of freshly cut timber bound for Chicago.

The discovery and identification of the vessel nearly 135 years later, spearheaded by Holland-based Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates, has put the Hamilton back in the news this week and Muskegon’s lumber era back in historical context.

That trip ended unexpectedly 15 miles off Saugatuck on Nov. 19, 1873, when a Lake Michigan gale sank the vessel and forced its seven-member crew to abandon ship.

The Hamilton sat on the bottom of Lake Michigan in 275 feet of water — its masts lying broken off on the starboard side and the deck and its final load missing — before it was discovered in 2006 and identified recently.

MSRA members search for shipwrecks in Lake Michigan by using historical research and special sonar equipment. They believe in unveiling their findings, the wreck’s location and the history of the ship to the public.

The Hamilton’s wreck sits upright on the bottom of Lake Michigan. At a depth of 275 feet, the wreck is considered a deep, dark and dangerous dive. The wreck is located 15 miles off shore, almost directly west and a little south of Saugatuck, van Heest said.

http://blog.mlive.com/chronicle/2008/04/underwater_odyssey.html

The Battle Creek Enquirer reports on a Lake Superior shipwreck discovery off the coast of Wisconsin:

She was the “Moonlight,” a wooden ship in an era of iron men and near-mythic triumph and tragedy on the Great lakes. She is renowned in sea-shanties that recall her grace, beauty and speed, her epic sailing duels with other schooners, racing the wind for home, and she is sadly remembered for her ignominious end, foundering in a fall gale near the Apostle Islands in September of 1903.

Later that year, Bob Olson, Rick Peters and Ken Merryman, divers for the Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society, found the vessel to be an astonishing archaeological treasure trove, amazingly intact after more than a century in the icy, preserving cold waters of Lake Superior. There the divers found the ship’s china, lanterns, anchors and the original steering wheel — all items that are commonly quickly looted from the sunken remains of vessels in shallower, more accessible waters.

http://tinyurl.com/6np26z

The S.S. Badger Carferry just completed its shakedown cruise for the upcoming season.  Click below for the Ludington Daily News:

The SS Badger headed out the channel and turned south at 9:30 this morning in a trial run Lake Michigan Carferry service refers to as a “shakedown cruise.” The cruise is something the company has done for several years, with the exception of last year. “It is intended to ensure that everything is running safely and smoothly and alerts Lake Michigan Carferry to a problem before the Badger is full of passengers on the first day of sailing,” said Magee Johnson, LMC director of media relations. The season starts on Friday, May 9. The cruise is not mandated by the U.S. Coast Guard, but it is fully supported by the organization, Johnson said.

http://www.ludingtondailynews.com/news.php?story_id=39899

I mentioned yesterday that the actual Detroit Free Press article about the new sturgeon reef in the Detroit River was not yet up on the freep site.  Well, it’s up today.  Excerpts and link:

The sturgeon arrived late but absolutely stole the show at an April 19 fete for a new chapter of the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge. For the first time, money has come together from both sides of the river — loonies and bucks in the same pot! — for a project, a sturgeon spawning reef to be laid in the river this fall.

The reception, speeches and champagne toast took place on Fighting Island, on the Canadian side of the river and owned by BASF Corp. U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, and his Canadian counterpart, Jeff Watson, a member of Parliament for much of Essex County, had the spotlight as the political parents of the wildlife refuge.

So much for the formalities. Politicians and press, funders and biologists all rushed out of the BASF lodge to see the sturgeon, brought dockside by two biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Sturgeon hark back to the time of the dinosaurs. Their recorded history suggests the Lake Huron-to-Lake Erie channel hosted the biggest numbers in the Great Lakes, and maybe in all of North America. They especially liked to loll in the Detroit River, which had nine known spawning sites.

Then our early Detroit predecessors nearly wiped them out, especially after discovering how well the oily fish burned in ship boilers.

But sturgeon can live a century or more, and at least a few of them never gave up completely on the Detroit River. Biologists started spotting them just off Zug Island during spawning season, and in 2001 finally collected eggs that proved sturgeon were once again reproducing.

Excitement about the Fighting Island spawning reef has spread like a contagion among the fishery crowd. Bruce Manny, a fishery biologist and sturgeon expert for the U.S. Geological Survey, brimmed with enthusiasm about what the next few years will reveal about sturgeon and the river. The Fighting Island channel reef has special potential, he said, because it lies upstream from some of the river’s last open spots of shoreline on the Canadian side — perfect nurseries for baby sturgeon.

Anticipation of sturgeon lovefests is spreading well beyond the biologists, too. The $178,000 in reef funding comes from foundations as well as government sources, with additional in-kind donations by BASF and DTE. The teamwork, essential to the refuge, shows how many borders can be crossed when people find a common motive.

http://tinyurl.com/6dweye

Note: The photo above comes from the State of Idaho’s web site.

The Ann Arbor News has info. about a new book focused on Ann Arbor area ghosts.  Personally, I think that the locations mentioned in the book would make for a nice nighttime walk:)

As the legend goes, Martha Mulholland died in 1845, supposedly poisoned by a greedy brother-in-law who wanted her land and money.

According to that same legend, it’s Mulholland who, more than a century and a half later, is hanging around the Dixboro General Store, moving things around, labeling jars of jam and generally making her presence known.

Store owner Steve Dani says staff and customers alike have been encountering the ghost since the store opened 17 years ago.

The ghost in the Dixboro General Store is just one of a number of specters described in “Ann Arbor Area Ghosts,” a new book by Royal Oak author and self-described “sensitive” Mimi Uptergrove.

Here are a few of the ghost stories described in Mimi Uptergrove’s “Ann Arbor Area Ghosts.”

• In 1997, in a small carriage house just outside of town, a poltergeist caused walls to bulge, chairs to rock on their own, and a man’s face to appear in a mirror. A male ghost visited the woman renting the home in her dreams, and she says in the book that, when waking from these dreams, she discovered he had done her actual bodily harm.

• In a house in Ypsilanti, the homeowner reported often seeing a “shadow man,” a tall black figure with red eyes, wearing a hat.

• The owner of a house on Miller Road who said that two Japanese foreign exchange students whom she hosted at different times both reported seeing a man standing in their room, gasping for air. The director of a local ghost research center got a tape recording of the ghost, who called himself Dave.

http://tinyurl.com/6hkasv

The City of Tecumseh has opened its new art trail.  Excerpts and link to David Frownfelder’s article in the Adrian Telegram:

Beginning this week, an Art Trail map can be picked up at any number of locations and people will be able to walk, bike or drive to the exhibits on display. Along the way, sculptures created from materials such as bronze, stone and steel will be displayed and available for sale.

Trail maps will guide people along the route and share information on each piece of art.

The Art Trail will start at the Tecumseh Community Center and have stops mainly within the Downtown Development Authority boundaries.

More information about Art Trail Tecumseh is available by calling Shelley Lim, marketing coordinator for the city of Tecumseh, at (517) 424-6003. Her e-mail address is slim@tecumseh.mi.us.

http://www.lenconnect.com/homepage/x1611218598

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One of the more interesting pedestrian opportunities in the Metro Detroit area begins a new season this Saturday.  Several near-in Detroit suburbs close Hines Drive between Ann Arbor Trail and Outer Drive to motorized traffic on Saturdays from 9AM until 3:30PM.  That’s a distance of six miles.  And the route follows close to the Rouge River, so scenic vistas are possible.  Several trails are either open or in the planning stages along this section of the Rouge, so additional mileage is certainly possible.

Read the related blurb in the Detroit Free Press here:

Bike, walk, run or go inline skating without worrying about motorized traffic on Saturdays from May 3 through Sept. 27. That’s when 6 miles of Hines Drive between Outer Drive and Ann Arbor Trail will be closed to cars, motorcycles and other motorized vehicles from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Parking is available near park entrances on both ends — at the Warrendale area in Detroit, at Warren Avenue east of Telegraph and at the Nankin Mills Picnic Area at Hines Drive and Ann Arbor Trail.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008804250347

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the cougar killed in Chicago has been linked by DNA to genetic material recovered from several Wisconsin-area cougar sightings:

A 124-pound cougar shot by Chicago police earlier this month is the same wild animal that was spotted in southern Wisconsin in January, Cook County officials said today.

DNA taken from the cat killed April 15 in Roscoe Village matches genetic material found in Rocky County, Wisconsin, following a cougar sighting there on Jan. 15, authorities said.

The test results also confirm that the male cat shot in Chicago was a wild, free-roaming cougar, not an escaped exotic pet, officials said.

But more tests are still being done to determine where the big cat originated. The nearest wild population of the predator to Chicago is in South Dakota, experts have said.

“These findings provide a glimpse into the life of this wild cougar and are critical pieces of a larger puzzle, which for us and other agencies is where it came from and how and why it reached an urban area,” Dr. Donna Alexander, Cook County animal control administrator, said in a statement.

http://tinyurl.com/5by8nw

The Chicago Tribune has additional reports on the school threat connected to the Chicago cougar shooting:

School officials at Audubon Elementary School in Chicago’s Roscoe Village neighborhood met with concerned parents Friday morning and beefed up security after receiving a threatening letter that connected the school to last week’s cougar shooting.

The letter made threatening statements regarding the Spring Gala and Audubon Family Fun Fair and is believed to have been written by someone who is angry about the cougar shooting, Principal John Price said in a letter sent home to parents. Price said the school would go ahead with the Spring Gala with additional security but had not made a decision about the Fun Fair.

http://tinyurl.com/59sgtp

The Traverse City Record Eagle reports that staff at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore visitor’s center have obtained a display specimen of a cougar.  It will be placed in the center so that park visitors can more accurately identify cougars:

Sleeping Bear officials this month borrowed a cougar mount from Michigan State University Museum to educate park patrons about the elusive cat — the subject of hundreds of reported sightings at Sleeping Bear and across lower Michigan.

“It is one of the predators that are historically in this area. We thought it would be nice to have something here so they know what they are reporting,” said park natural resources chief Steve Yancho.

The mounted cougar, originally from Nevada, stands over 2-feet tall and 6-plus feet long. It will be on display this summer in the main exhibit area of the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center on M-72 in Empire.

http://tinyurl.com/6doawr

Eric Sharp of the Detroit Free Press has an April 17th column about fishing the Lake Erie shore between Detroit and Rondeau Bay.  Excerpts and link:

Perch numbers have declined in western Lake Erie since the arrival 25 years ago of zebra mussels, which compete for food with baby perch. But the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources estimates the numbers of spawning-age perch in the basin at 16.5 million, up slightly from last year.

He pointed to a small object on the southern horizon, just to the east of Big Sister Island whose treetops could be seen above the water.

“That’s the Admiral Perry Monument (in Put-in-Bay, Ohio). This really is a big high-pressure system that has moved in. You can see the nuclear plant in Ohio, too, and that’s 32 miles away. We don’t get many days when we can see this far,” Horoky said.

Anderson said he and Horoky can’t figure out why they don’t draw more anglers from southeastern Michigan.

“We have good walleye and steelhead fishing here right through the summer, and you don’t have the big pack of boats to contend with that you get in Ohio,” Horoky said.

Said Anderson, “And we’re only 40, 45 minutes from Detroit, not 2 1/2 hours like if you go to Ohio. But Detroit is a market that we just haven’t been able to tap.”

http://tinyurl.com/5zqxdz

John Schneider, a columnist for the Lansing State Journal, has an interesting piece about one man’s adventure across southern Michigan via canoe.  Charlie Parmelee, a man from Leslie, is following the route made by Hugh Heward in 1790.  Parmelee started on the Huron River near Flat Rock, then took Portage Creek to Hell.  A major portage took him to the Portage River and then the Grand River.  Sometime this week, he will reach Lake Michigan at Grand Haven.  That is very cool.  Excerpts and link:

Woodruff, 86, lives on the Grand River in Delta Township. He’s a retired engineer who describes his hobby as “canoe- related Michigan history.”

He once read about a British trader named Hugh Heward who traveled by canoe from Lake Erie to Lake Michigan across Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. That was on April 24, 1790.

Woodruff began wondering if such a trip was still feasible. He spent years researching the question - in the library and out in the field. He put hundreds of miles on his car checking out the route, and concluded the journey might be possible.

On March 28 in the snow, Parmelee put his canoe into the Huron River near Flat Rock and began paddling up stream. He passed through Belleville, Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor and Dexter. He then continued up Portage Creek, a Huron tributary, all the way to Hell.

Southeast of Stockbridge, Parmelee crossed the divide between the Lake Erie and Lake Michigan watersheds. Following a major portage, which included dragging his canoe on training wheels two miles down a highway, he put in at the headwaters of the Portage River, a tributary of the Grand.

On Saturday, other canoeists and kayakers will join Parme-lee for the annual 50-mile river dash to Portland known as the “Hugh Heward Challenge.”

Parmelee is expected to arrive in Grand Haven in the middle of next week.

The point of Parmelee’s monthlong odyssey?

“To reenact history,” Woodruff said. “And to prove that a guy like Charlie can still do it.”

http://tinyurl.com/6y7nnk

Read this blog for HIGHLY RECOMMENDED updates about Charlie’s journey with historic context:

http://pinckneymich.net/blog/

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Saturday afternoon, I stopped in at Lake Lansing Park North.  I took I-69 from Lansing and exited at Saginaw St./Business 69.  I took Saginaw south for a short stretch and turned east on Old M-78.  A right turn on Perry Rd. and a left on E. Lake Drive took me to the park’s entrance.  Once in the free-entry park, I drove all the way to the end of the park access road.  The hiking trailhead starts at a small cul-de-sac there.

Despite what the name suggests, Lake Lansing is not the main attraction for hikers at this park.  The park does contain a portion of Lake Lansing shoreline.  This section, however, is dedicated to a boat launch.  I suppose that it would be possible to walk the park access road to this launch, but this is a bit of an unwieldy addition to the park’s actual trail system.

A short distance east from the parking area is the trailhead.  Three loop trails depart from this point.  The Green trail is 3.3 miles long.  The Blue is 3.8 miles.  The Red is short at a mile of length.  A Yellow spur shortens the mileage of the Green trail.  An Orange spur lessens the distance of the Blue Trail.

I decided to take the Blue trail on Saturday.  The terrain was predominantly flat, with a few small hills mixed in.  Several dark swamp areas appeared in a few locations. 

The forests were largely oak and maple with a few pine plantings.  While pine plantings are not always the healthiest forest ecosystems, they do provide for dramatic aesthetic changes on a sunny-day hike.  A hiker might be in bright sunshine one moment, but passage into the pine woods can almost completely obscure the sun.  Even the temperature sometimes decreases.

The trails in Lake Lansing Park North seem popular with residents of the nearby neighborhoods.  I saw about eight to ten people on my Saturday afternoon hike.  I was passed by this adventure racer early in my circle route.

As mentioned previously, Lake Lansing is not visible from this trail system.  That said, there are many areas of boardwalk and open marsh.  These allow for wildlife viewing.  Benches and occasional picnic areas dot the route.

It is possible to extend the hike length beyond four miles at Lake Lansing Park North.  As mentioned previously, a hiker can walk to Lake Lansing along the park roads to the boat launch.  It is also possible to created a rather convoluted route that combines the Blue, Green, Yellow and Orange trails to push mileage above five miles.  A few spots in the SE quadrant of the trail system have hikeable bushwack routes and a power corridor extends north to south in the easternmost edge of the park property.

In addition, I hiked a short loop route just to the west of the trailhead.  You can find this by following a two-track at the NW corner of the final parking lot and walking around the edge of the baseball field into a northern section of park property.  The trail follows a raised dike along the property edge.  This trail does not show up on the park’s trail map, but it is easily followed.  The distance is roughly 1.3 miles.

Another possibility includes a route through some nearby subdivisions.  In the south-central portion of the park trail system, it is possible to connect to Woodwind Trail and Wild Ginger Trail.  Subdivision sidewalks and a wide shoulder on East Lake Drive take a walker to the park entrance and allow for the possibility to close a walkable loop.

While doing map study for this blog post, I also noticed an intriguing hike possibility.  The aforementioned power line corridor seems to connect in the SE section of the park with an old railroad right-of-way.  The satellite photos clearly show a path on the park side of an active railbed.  It would be interesting to know if a public entity owns this apparent unused railbed.  This path seems to connect to the subdivisions creating a large loop back to the park road.  This would be an interesting avenue to explore in the future.

The park trail does the best job of showing the marked “official” trails.  You can see it here:

http://tinyurl.com/6×32en

I have marked all of the unmarked “unofficial” trails that I know of on this Microsoft Virtual Earth map:

http://tinyurl.com/55sdwt

Here’s the official park website.  It has a very interesting history of the Lake Lansing area:

http://tinyurl.com/5l3om5