Indian Springs Metropark App
The Indian Springs Metropark app is the ultimate guide to exploring and enjoying Indian Springs Metropark, located west of Pontiac, Michigan.
Download the Android app from Android Market.
Visit our Hudson Mills Metropark page for more information about the park.
Indian Springs Metropark Trails
Indian Springs Metropark houses 22.5km of assorted trails, leading through woods and wetlands. Following the trails out of the south end of the park you pass through a short tunnel into Pontiac Lake State Recreation Area, giving access to those trails, as well.
Warning: Rattlesnakes are present, and somewhat common, in the park. Although sightings are rare, it’s best to stay on the trails. If you see a rattlesnake, just keep a safe distance and try to take a picture of this rare animal before it slithers away from you.
Suggested Trails:
Paved Trails:
- An 8-mile, mostly out and back trail, begins at the top of the hill, near the back of the park, just across from the Environmental Discovery Center. You start off by going down the only significant hill in the park alongside the road, with restored praire on your right, before turning into the mixed woods and wetlands for the first three miles. After three miles, you face a fork in the trail. It makes no difference which direction you turn, as it’s a two-mile loop. Return directly to the parking lot for an 8-mile trip, or do the loop a second time before turning to bring it up to a nice, round, 10-miles.
Hiking Trails:
Following the park road all the way to the end, you find a parking lot near the park office. This is the main trailhead for most of the hiking trails.
- Crosscut Trail: 1.4km Turning right after you pass the park office building puts you on the Woodland Trail. There are several options for this trail, depending on how far you want to walk. The Crosscut Trail is the shortest route, crossing the Huron River where it’s nearly small enough to hop over, and through the sugar bush, before returning on the first trail to the parking lot. No bikes or pets are allowed on this trail.
- Hunter’s Ridge Trail: 2km. Passing the first intersection, you continue through woods and wetlands until you reach the second cut-over trail, turning left there, and at the next intersection to return to the parking area. Along the way, you’ll pass by the remains of an old, wooden farm wagon, it’s iron-sheathed, wooden wheels slowly vanishing into the woods. No bikes or pets are allowed on this trail.
- Sawmill Trail: 3.3km. Passing by the Hunter’s Ridge Trail, you continue through more woods and wetlands until you reach the Sawmill Shortcut, marked by a large saw blade assembly, abandoned here by one of the clearcutting operations which once operated in the park. No bikes or pets are allowed on this trail.
- Woodland Trail: 5.1km. Continuing past the Sawmill Shortcut (after taking a quick stop to check out the saw, of course), you continue along the Woodland Trail, crossing the largest wetland areas on the trail network. No bikes or pets are allowed on this trail.
- Timberland Lake Trail: 5.5km. Off the far end of the Woodland Trail loop, the Timberland Lake Trail is a short boardwalk leading across a small fen (complete with carnivorous pitcher plants!) before reaching a deck overlooking Timberland Lake. Looking across the lake, you may be lucky enough to spot some of the large birds found here, including great blue herons, egrets, and sandhill cranes. No bikes or pets are allowed on this trail.
- Pond Trail: 0.6km. The only paved nature trail in the park, the Pond Trail leads from the same parking lot as the Woodland Trail. Off the end of the parking lot, follow the paved trail as it winds around the small pond, being sure to keep an eye out for elusive river otters. No bikes or pets are allowed on this trail.
- Farm Trail: 3km. Off the back end of the same parking lot, the often missed Farm Trail loop winds through wooded former farmlands. As is often the case with former farmland, there is much old farm equipment left here, so take your time exploring this trail and it’s artifacts. No bikes or pets are allowed on this trail.
Equestrian Trail:
- Equestrian Loop: 4.5km. This trail, also open to hikers, is a bit odd. Passing through the southern part of the park, this trail, the only trail which allows horses, has no accessible parking area for horses, requiring them to enter either from the main road outside the park, or from adjacent Pontiac Lake State Recreation Area. Hikers can park at the small lot just east of the Huron River, then follow the road to the tunnel and drop into the park there. No bikes are allowed on this trail.
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Indian Springs Metropark Sugar Bush
Indian Springs Metropark’s nature area includes a small sugar bush and sugar shack, which they give tours of during the early spring.
A sugar bush is a stand of maple trees, ideally sugar maples. Although you can make a sugary syrup from nearly any deciduous trees (conifers, like pine trees, make turpentine, instead, which isn’t really as tasty), the sap from a maple tree has much more sugar than any other.
To make maple syrup, you place taps into maple trees in early spring, ideally when nights are below freezing and days are above freezing, to maximize the sap flow. The number of taps is determined by the diameter of the tree and, as long as you don’t exceed this number, they do no harm to the tree. From each tap, you hang a bag or bucket, or attach a collection hose, to collect the watery, nearly tasteless sap as it slowly drips from the trees. This sap is then collected and taken to the sugar shack.
Once at the sugar shack, the water-like sap is slowly boiled down in a broad, shallow evaporator pan, allowing the water to boil off and the remaining contents, sugar and other chemicals which give it the distinctive maple flavor, to concentrate. By measuring the specific gravity of the liquid, it’s possible to determine when each grade of maple syrup has been reached.
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Indian Springs Metropark Environmental Discovery Center
Almost all the way at the back of Indian Springs Metropark is the Environmental Discovery Center. More than a typical nature center, the EDC encourages you to go explore and learn on your own. Begin your hikes here with a walk around the main exhibit area, and don’t forget to go into the basement Pond Room, where you get a fish’s eye view of the world, entering an underwater dome to get eye to eye with fish, turtles, frogs, and any other pond visitors. Be sure to stop by the main desk to get more ideas for your visit before going out on the extensive trail network to continue your exploration of this park.
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Indian Springs Metropark Farm and Sawmill Equipment
Spread throughout the park, along all the nature trails in the north end of the park, are pieces of equipment found in the park. Farm equipment includes three plows, a cultivator, and a mower on the farm trail.
On the main nature trails, you can find a part of a woodburning stove and a blade assembly from a portable sawmill abandoned at some point during clear-cutting the park decades ago.
Scattered throughout the park are segments of old fencing, fire breaks, stone walls, and more. Most of it is fairly subtly, but if you keep your eyes open, you may be surprised what you can find.
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Indian Springs Metropark Deer Exclosures
As you wander through many parks, you’ll see odd, fenced areas. Not very large, maybe ten by ten meters, and a few meters tall, these enclosures are used to measure the impact of deer, elk, moose, wild boars, or other animals on the local ecosystem.
Any park with a large population of often-hunted animals is often subjected to disputes between hunters and non-hunters.
- The hunters, seeing a large number of these animals, often due to the animals being human socialized, argue that there are too many of the animals, the ecosystem is overpopulated, and they should be allowed to hunt and kill off large numbers of these relatively tame animals.
- Non-hunters, who greatly prefer to see large numbers of animals wandering around alive, argue that there’s no overpopulation problem, that the animals are protected in this park, and as a result, they don’t run and hide any time they see a human. They also argue that the food supply will naturally limit the population of any species, including deer, elk, wild boars, etc.
Park managers, caught in the middle, use these animal exclosures as a way to (relatively) objectively gauge the impact of larger, grazing animals on the local ecosystem. Since the fence is made of a fairly open wire mesh, smaller animals can easily pass through it to access the plants within, but larger animals can not. By comparing the plant growth inside the fence with that outside the fence, over a period of months, it’s possible to determine if the larger animals are having a disproportionate, or even damaging, impact on the ecosystem. If the inside is lush, green, and filled with plants and the outside is stripped down bare to the ground, there’s a definitely problem. If they look the same, there’s definitely no problem. If there’s a distinct difference between inside and outside, over a period of months or more, then more work needs to be done to determine if an overpopulation problem exists.
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This page is just a small part of the Indian Springs Metropark app.