We had a sunny day on Saturday, great weather for a walk that I had planned for a while with my friend and co-worker, Carolyn. We’d visited a few parks that were central to our locations, and were in search of a new one. I opened up Google Maps in satellite view and searched that way. Carolyn searched “best parks near Novi” and found Woodland Hills. Perfect!
If you’re familiar with the area, it’s the southwest corner of Farmington Rd. and I-696. If not, here is a map. There is a small parking area at the trailhead, several picnic tables, a box with maps (that was empty) and a vault toilet.
I wish the snowmobile trails up north had this much snow! The entire trail system would turn out to be packed, wet snow, down to the dirt in sunnier spots.
There were wooden foot bridges partially exposed by the melting snow.
We walked and talked, taking random turns throughout the woods. I kept pausing to take pics of the landscape.
We came upon a valley with a creek and another bridge. To the left was a tree with quite a bit of graffiti. I wonder who Dark Bear is?
Here is a view from the wooden foot bridge, which I’m sure after a heavy rain is submerged. Today we were able to walk across it.
After crossing I stopped and took a panoramic pic with my phone.
As we continued walking the trail curves to the right and winds along a pond.
We came upon the first of several deer! This doe was peeking at us as we approached. LOTS of does in the park, and they were BIG. Seemed like they were used to people as well, as they didn’t flee as quickly as I expected them to.
We looped around the pond, and our way back, noticed this steel beam leading into the weeds. I wanted to walk out on it, and my adventurous friend was game!
We carefully stepped across the beam, a very shallow pond on one side, and tall reeds on the other. They were handy for hanging on to. Soon we came to the end of the line though, as the next section of steel beam dipped down, creating a bit of a waterfall on to the rocks below.
We turned and headed back.
We came up on another bridge and stopped to peer at the bundles of rocks below, likely for erosion control. They were on both sides of the bridge. I mentioned how every creek, stream or small river I see, I think about paddling it.
Down the trail, we come a upon a type of path someone outlined with large rocks! Too cool! It wasn’t part of the main trail. Of course we veered off and went to take a look.
We came upon a large rock deposit where someone had built several cairns, which promptly reminded me of the Blair Witch Project. 🙂 I kept walking.
More deer! This one scratched at the ground a bit with her hooves and I didn’t quite know what she was doing until she lowered herself down on her front legs and got comfy. Again, just nonchalantly looking our way. “Oh. More humans..” To the right of her, another doe did the same thing. Nap time for a bit until it was time to come out and hunt.
We continued on, sometimes looping back on the same trail, enjoying our conversation, and the bright, sunny day. It got warm enough to lose our coats for a while! Though, I should have worn my rubber muck boots. The ones I wore turned out to be not waterproof and my feet were soaked after the 90 minutes we spent exploring the park.
A great day exploring though, with great company!
