Hiking Petoskey State Park – MyMichiganTrips.com

Petoskey State Park Portage Trail – June 23, 2015

While camping a Petoskey State Park we woke up to a cool and breezy morning. After breakfast we put on our sweatshirts and walked from our campsite to the trailhead for the Portage Trail.

The Portage Trail starts between 1st and 2nd loops in the Tannery Creek Campground.

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Heading up into the woods.

Crossing through a sandy open dune area.

The Portage Trail has 2 different routes labeled as easy and hard. The easy trail is marked with yellow squares and the hard trail has yellow diamonds.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” I think Robert Frost was saying to always take the hard trail, so that is the way we went.

Climbing up on a dune ridge.

Nice section of white birch trees on the trail.

The trail followed a ridge along the east edge of the State Park. At times you could hear the traffic from M-119 and see some buildings including Petoskey Brewing Company through breaks in the leaves below.

Looking for treasure along the trail.

The steepest climb of the hike between where the trail loops out along the dune ridges.

After following the second ridge the trail starts a steady drop down to the Tannery Creek Campground road.

We continued across the road and then picked up the Campground Trail which took us almost right back to our campsite. The total distance was about 1.75 miles and it took us under 45 minutes to complete the loop.

We had fairly low expectations for this trail because it is short not in any of our hiking guidebooks. I found it only briefly mentioned in: Michigan State Parks: A Complete Recreation Guide. Although, we were pleasantly surprised with hike. There are not big views, but the trail had enough elevation change and ridge walking to make for an interesting hike. It was a good way to spend a cool morning in Petoskey State Park.

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