Happy Feet

Site Notes…

This hike will take you along some of the more desolate stretches of shoreline in Muskegon State Park, as well as into the forest on one of the many trails heading up from the shoreline. Take your shoes off and splash in the lake… you will truly have happy feet!

This box is located in Muskegon State Park. A Michigan State Parks vehicle pass is required for entry and can be purchased at the park. Please check the park web site for dates and hours of operation.

Getting There…

Follow Memorial Drive west toward Muskegon State Park. Where Memorial Drive ends at Lake Michigan, turn left toward the park entrance. Park in the first beach parking area past the guard station.

Clues…

While visiting some friends in Muskegon, Kali spent an afternoon walking the beach and exploring trails at Muskegon State Park. She remembered a trail where she had walked a few years earlier, and recalled a broken tree she had found artistically interesting. Not having her camera with her at the time, she had marked a tree at the trailhead, hoping to return another time.

She parked her car in the first beach parking area at the park and set off north along the water’s edge. If she remembered correctly, the trail was about a mile up the beach. It was a sunny summer day, the water sparkled in the sunlight and gentle waves lapped at the sandy beach. She removed her shoes and splashed through the edge of the warm water, her feet happy.

After a bit she reached an area of rocks along the beach. The water was deeper here so she decided to hop from rock to rock rather than walk around them in the water. About halfway she stopped to sit and admire the view, watching a sailboat lazily cruising the shoreline, carefree and graceful. Grateful she had her camera, she took several pictures to show her friends back in Denver, where they had no beaches, and somehow managed to live without them.

Reaching the other side of the pile of rocks, the beach opened back up and a few sunbathers relaxed here on this secluded section of beach. Past here the road turned away from the beach and the tree line began. A large sand-faced hill basked in the mid-day sunshine, dotted with tell-tale footprints of adventurous weekend climbers. The dune gave way to gently sloped sand hills covered with beach grass. Up ahead she spotted the two sprawling, though diminutive, young pin oaks perched on the sandy slope, she had remembered as landmarks indicating her trail up into the woods. Her eyes moved just a bit further up the beach, looking for a family of young sassafras trees, congregated on the hillside, as if sitting in theater seats, waiting for evening’s sunset show.

And there, nestled between the pin oaks and the sassafras, at the northern corner of a sand-faced hill, a sandy path led up into the forest. Confident this was the trail she had taken before, she climbed the hill and at the top, located the sprawling beech tree where she had carved her name in 1999. She rested her camera for a moment in the low crook of the tree branches, while she brushed the sand off her feet and put her shoes back on before heading along the trail into the trees. She playfully swung herself down the hill on the low-hanging maple branches, the screech of hawks overhead.

Up the trail, as she passed by a large sand hill with a stump at the bottom, things began to look vaguely familiar, although she didn’t remember there being so many downed trees across the path the last time she was here. Looks like this part of the forest took on the wrath of a Lake Michigan storm since then. The trail got quite narrow and twisted around several large pine trees. Ahead on the right, she found the hollow knot of a dead beech tree rather interesting and stopped to take a picture. Just ahead of this, a large tree trunk lay on the ground at a 45 degree angle to the right edge of the trail, wedged between two trees, 1 living, 1 dead.

As the trail widened and went down a small hill, along the right side of the trail, she spotted the familiar grouping of 4 pine trees growing side to side, and noticed that 1 of the trees was now dead and had broken off about 15 ft. from the ground, although not the double-trunked one that had amused her, appearing to hug itself.She looked over her right shoulder, and there it was — the sculpturous tree trunk she had remembered, pointing toward the sky like a rifle rested on a soldier’s shoulder. The trunk had rotted since she last remembered, it’s hollow belly now filled with leaves and other forest treasures.