Campground Interludes - On Foot

Once a year I can tolerate- OK, I actually enjoy,  visiting with family. (But don't tell anybody! I have a reputation to uphold.) Carousing, and perhaps even partying, with people I've known pretty much since birth, mine or theirs depending on where we fall on the chronologic time-scale.

But because of the way I'm built I have to take my socializing, even with this familiar crowd, in small, measured bits or else I end up fetaled in a corner with my hands covering my head.

One of my favorite ways of decompressing between bouts of socializing is hiking.

In that department this particular campground where we were holding the reunion offered more of a stroll than a hike, but I'll take what I can get! In fact I got to know this stroll/hike quite well during the week I was there.

Put together the two loops of official campground trail add up to just over 1.6 miles, but their figure 8 configuration meant I could loop around twice per stroll, covering each loop in both directions with minimal overlap, so I didn't feel like I was running in circles on the high-school track.

And yes, even the most modest of trails has something to offer as long I take the time to smell the flowers, and the dew on the grass, and the dog-cra - - well, OK, you get the idea.

The first loop, the southernmost one that is closest to the campground, actually passed within 30 feet or so of the backside of my campsite allowing me to bypass the official trailhead, accessed by tramping through the dump-station, with a few high steps over the intervening brush. Careful steps so as to not disturb the normal people that aren't up quite this early and sleeping in tents just a few steps away.

And yes, for those of you with very good eyes, this loop of the trail is fully paved.

But there's not quite enough light for photographs yet so - 

let's start on the back loop. The one called Wildlife way. (The front loop is called the Nature Trail and has a few placards identifying some of the trees.)

Oh, and I think that claim of being one mile long is just a little optimistic. Though it probably does make us gym-avoiding office-drones feel just a little better about ourselves when we finish the loop.

 

The front loop is entirely within the shadows of a wooded area, but the back loop, not paved like the front loop though the way is clearly defined with a well-mowed path, 

is more out in the open so brightens up earlier.

Of course we're not exactly out in the wilderness here

but in the right light - well, you know, that whole pigs and lipstick thing? That can work with just about anything.

And as long as we're on that whole pigs and lipstick scenario, back on the trail map, second image from the top in this post, you see that arrow pointing to Mt. Holly?

That's actually a ski resort and, with a good bit of zoom on my trusty Cannon SX50, it's visible from the trail I'm on.

But wait! Michigan is not exactly known for it's mountainous terrain!

Yep, Mt. Holly, which has operated as a popular ski resort since shortly after I was born, is actually a pile of garbage.

Seriously! It's built on top of an old landfill. (Back in its day this landfill was out in the country - not so today by a long shot!) A big pile of the crap we didn't want anymore. Which are the only real hills to be found around here.

For a while Mom worked in the emergency room of Pontiac General, the nearest hospital, and often saw the results of Mt. Holly skiing-gone-bad. - - As kids we were never encouraged to take up downhill skiing!

Now that the sun is getting a little bit higher this morning

let's try plunging into the foliar tunnel that leads back to the front loop.

In sharp contrast to the Wildlife Way loop, this area

is heavily wooded,

so pay attention!

This tree wasn't laying there on my out-bound passage this morning - - -

Back at the official trailhead there's a sign warning that the max grade on the Nature Trail, this bit of paved loop, is 13%.

I think this is what they are talking about. But don't get your panties in a bunch! The elevation change is less than 20 feet so the climb doesn't last long.

Perhaps not the most challenging trail I've ever been on,

but that didn't stop me from getting out there on it often

and enjoying the great moments it had to offer.