Shedder and Shorts

We left for the Jordan River Pathway early Saturday and got to the parking lot a Deadman’s Hill at about 10am. As we got our packs together at the car, a rabbit appeared within a few feet. It was a domestic rabbit, an odd thing to see in a parking lot in the middle of the woods. Just about the time we had our packs on and were ready to head out, it started raining. We dove back into the car and napped for about 30 minutes while it poured. When things started to let up the rabbit was no where to be seen and we donned our rain gear and started down the trail.

Fen in the Jordan River Valley

The loop from Deadman’s Hill (named because a logger died on the hill) to Pinney Bridge walk-in campground and back is 18.5 miles. We hike south on the west side of the river. The first several miles of trail twists through beaver ponds and fen before meeting the Jordan River. The river is a beautiful sandy-bottomed stream of cold, clear water. The shore along it is often peat, and the numerous fallen logs in the river turn it into a maze through which the current twists. We saw some interesting things along the way: two moths in congress, lots of american toads, and some deer flies eating three dead carrion beetles. We got to the Pinney Bridge campground around 4 p.m. and set up the tent, at which point it started to rain again. We hung out in the tent for a while as rain fell, and then went down to the river before having dinner and turning in.

Pinney Bridge campground is nice. If you don’t walk south like we did it’s about a 1/4 mile walk in from Pinney Road. There are maybe 15 sites circling a meadow that used to be a logging camp. We had fun imagining the logging camp, and Anna joked about a Park Service “evening program” about the grounds’ history as first a logging camp, then a Conservation Corp camp, and finally a state campground.

Snail on the Jordan River Pathway

Sunday was a beautiful day, especially in the woods. We hit the trail for the 10-mile hike back north through beautiful woods and over more challenging terrain. Spotted an interesting pawprint in the sand where the trail passed through a meadow. Not sure what kind of animal it was. Anna talked a bit about how, going on hikes is more interesting for her know that she’s not doing scientific fieldwork; said that for the past several years going on hikes was a bit too similar to going to work. When we got back to Deadman’s Hill at about 3pm and the rabbit was there at the car again.

This is a great hike. I think even nicer than the Manistee River Trail loop.

Looking for a good day trip not too far from Lansing, we elected to hike the Long Lake trail at Yankee Springs State Recreation Area. This spot held a few attractions for us. There’s an interesting kettle there called the Devils Soup Bowl, but there’s also a lot of swamp, and we were hoping some of it might turn out to be Prairie Fen, the rare habitat that’s an academic focus for Anna. We hit the trail head around 11a.m. Jim Dufresne outlines a nice loop in his book 50 Hikes in Michigan that has one hiking out on Long Lake Trail, then Hall Lake for a view of the Devils Soup Bowl and returning along Chief Noonday Trail and about 1.5 miles of road. We quickly ruled out that loop as the heavy traffic would have made the road portion of the hike unpleasant for us. So, we headed out on Long Lake Trail with the map and figured we’d piece something together, avoiding the road and, hopefully, spotting some fen.

Tiger Beetle and Soldier Ant

We wound up circling around a circuit involving Long Lake, Hall Lake, a few other trails. We went out probably 3 miles to the Devils Soup Bowl, which is an interesting geological formation. The trail around it is pretty sandy, the usual sign of esker, but there wasn’t the pronounced distinction between esker and kettle that I’m familiar with from the Kettle Moraine area in Wisconsin. The Yankee Springs website lists the Devils Soup Bowl as a major attraction, along with Grave’s Hill Overlook.  The overlook, however, doesn’t exist anymore (I’m not the first person to blog about this). The thick stand of autumn olive that obscures whatever vista was once there is a great illustration of an invasive species running unchecked. In this second half of the hike, the part further east near the Soup Bowls and Hall Lake, there were lots of invasives like Autumn Olive and Japanese Knotweed covering the understory and filling the fields.

There wasn’t as much wetland as we’d hoped for here, but there were one or two spots that Anna said might well be fen. It’s difficult to make the call without really getting into them, though, and when folks lay trails they usually avoid fens because they’re not super friendly (water, hummocks, smelly, poison sumac, etc.). The neatest thing we saw was a tiger beetle eating a soldier ant. We watched the beetle struggle with the ant for a while, with the ant gradually growing more placid. Then we walked to the car and drove home while I imagine the beetle ate the ant.I guess the ballet of life goes on, or something.

Made plans last night with Sandwich, Matt Pantone, and Lunch Box to go hiking and fishing at Lake Ovid today. When I got up at 8:00 this morning it was already 82F outside. I my fishing stuff and a lot of water into the car and headed to Sandwich’s house. We picked up some worms and arranged for a boat rental at the store at Round Lake on route to Lake Ovid at Sleeping Hollow State Park. The boat was an eight foot aluminum job with some messed up oars that had failed us by the end of the day. It leaked a little bit, too.

Lake Ovid Bass

Lake Ovid’s fairly big. We had been provided along with the boat rental with a contour map of the depths, but the size of the lake and wind really restricted just how much ground we could cover in the rowboat. We managed to row out against the wind until the island was just to our windward side and could sit calmly there and fish. I caught a bluegill and a very small bass. Sandwich spotted a deer on the far shore. We moved after a while into some weeds, where everyone hit on some bluegill. They were even taking Sandwich’s bare hook (he also got a bass here). We ran out of worms and the action slowed a bit on plastics. Then we rowed back to the island, where I caught a decent largemouth on a chartreuse mister twister.

We’d been out on the water for about four hours when we called it quits; never did any hiking. Got some decent sun and had a nice day. On the way home we spotted two sandhill cranes in a fallow cornfield on Shepardsville Rd.

Took a gamble and headed up to Leelanau County hoping to get a July 4 campsite at Sleeping Bear Dunes without a reservation. At park headquarters we were turned away, but regrouped in the parking lot, went back in with some persistence, and wound up with the precise site we wanted. There are six back country sites in the Platte River area under the name White Pines. The walk in from the road is just a little over one mile. Once we packed in and had the tent set up Anna napped while I took a four-mile round trip hike to Bass Lake.

Lake Michigan Shoreline

White Pine is just a few tenths of a mile from the Lake Michigan beach. The shore is beautiful, and because there isn’t any road access, there were relatively few people around. We went swimming in the lake on Saturday afternoon and watched the sunset in the evening, feeling fortunate to have such a great place to visit. On the path between the campsite and lake we saw a very small bird. Anna guessed it was a robin because there was a robin calling nearby. Too small to fly, it was sitting on the ground, swaying softly side to side. When we returned on the same path about an hour later it was gone.

This was a great spot. I’d like to come back, either to this area or perhaps to North Manitou Island.