The Homestead Trail – April 14, 2013
It has been one of the those years in Michigan where the weather can’t agree with the calendar that it is spring. After a week of clouds and rain with temperatures in the low 40s, the weekend started out even worse with scattered snow showers. Finally after lunch on Sunday the wintry mix let up. We put the rain coats in our backpack and decided to drive up to Hoffmaster State Park. We hoped that the sandy hiking trails here would still be in good shape even after a week of rain.
The Homestead Trail at P. J. Hoffmaster State Park is a nice hike through wooded dunes out to the a beautiful beach on Lake Michigan. The trail is about a 2.5 mile loop that includes a 0.5 mile beach walk. With some soft sand and hills this is a moderately difficult hike.
The trailhead for the Homestead trail can be found at the south end of the parking area for the Gillette Visitor Center.
Just after starting the trail there is a fork heading down the hill to the right into the “quiet area” of the park. After about 0.2 miles this trail dead ends at this bench in the bottom of a valley between the dunes. With this being right at the start of the hike we really didn’t need a rest so we turned around and headed back to the main trail.
The Homestead trail is a fairly wide and sandy path that is marked with orange hikers posing like 8 year old girls.
A little further down the trail there is an enclosure to show what happens to the vegetation on the forest when it is not browsed by the whitetail deer.
Crossing an open meadow area in between the dunes. Even with all the recent rain the trails were almost dry already. The sun even started to come out as we hiked!
Starting to head up and over the dunes on the way to Lake Michigan. There were also a couple orange boot print signs marking the trail.
The shifting sand was starting overtake the trees on this dune near the beach.
At just over 1 mile the trail breaks out of the woods and heads down to the beach. At the lake turn right and follow the beach North to complete the loop.
With Lake Michigan at record low levels at the start of 2013 the beach was almost about 50 yards wide and perfect for walking.
Regan’s favorite thing to do in the spring is looking for treasures that wash up on the beach. This time we came home with two pieces of drift wood, a sponge ball, metal cap and an American Express credit card tray from a restaurant.
After about a 1/2 mile watch for the “NO ANIMALS OR GLASS CONTAINERS” sign along the beach. Then heading back into the dunes there is another sign that points you down the path back to the visitor center.
After following the signs up the small sand hill you will find stairs and a boardwalk heading back into the woods.
In about another 1/2 mile you come to walkway running along the side of the visitor center. Be careful, the plastic boards are really slippery when wet. Just before this there is a stairway that leads up to a dune overlook that you may have noticed on top of the dunes when you were heading up from the beach. There is a nice view from the top, but we didn’t have time to do it on this visit.
The Gillette Sand Dune Visitor Center was closed on this Sunday afternoon.
For operating hours and more information see the Gillette Nature Association Website >>
View Hiking Hoffmaster SP – The Homestead Trail 4/14/2013 in a larger map
The GPS track of our hike. It took a few minutes for the GPS to locate us so a small section at the start is missing. The 2.5 mile hike took us about 1 hour and 15 minutes to complete.
For more on this hike pickup a copy of: Explorer’s Guide 50 Hikes in Michigan: Sixty Walks, Day Trips, and Backpacks in the Lower Peninsula
A map of all the hiking trails at Hoffmaster State Park. If the map does not show above click here.
Driving directions to the trail head >>
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