Hike and Seek: Lower Huron Metropark

Several Saturdays ago we ventured out for the first time since receiving my metropark pass. We visited the Lower Huron Metropark, one of thirteen parks in the Huron Clinton metropark system. It was a chilly winter day but not too bad to bundle up for a walk in the woods.

We first drove through the park, kind of a straight line in a way with entrances at both ends. Our first stop was a turnoff with what I assumed was a fishing dock.

The current was rather swift and I tried to photograph the swirls in the water but couldn’t quite capture it. One thing I noticed here and other parts of the river is that it’s quite deep. You could tell from the rocky shoreline just how quickly it dropped off.

Our next stop was the Bob White nature trail, a short loop through the woods.

This section is on the other side of the road from the river, so the only bridge was right at the beginning, crossing a small creek. One area of interest was this type of large cage we came across, where the trail starts to loop back to the beginning.

? No idea what this was aside from some sort of animal pen?

The decent size saplings growing through the center indicate this hasn’t been used in a while, but the gate opened freely and the hardware looked quite new.

We passed this huge tree on the way back and I stood Bill in front of it for perspective. 🙂

We hopped back in the car and stopped at the next trailhead (I can’t recall the name!) It was near what used to be the golf course. With the amount of standing water on the boards, I imagine this would be slippery!

Our next and my second favorite stop of the day was this section of the park. I mentioned how swift the current was earlier, from this vantage point you could really see the water move.

Enough for some serious No Swimming warnings! Paddling this part would be fun though.

We took a walk across the bridge and saw how flooded out the other side was.

And came upon this interesting, twisted tree!

So my favorite stop, as you may have guessed, was finding the canoe/kayak launch!

At the river’s edge there was a sign noting the length the trips you could take. I liked how it points out the stops in either direction, and I wonder how difficult with that current it would be to paddle upstream! We did also learn that there is a CAMPGROUND in this park! For RVs, not just the canoe/kayak campgrounds which is awesome to begin with. My head was exploding with excitement!