One of Michigan’s hiking gems is literally in metro Detroit's backyard.
The Highland Recreation Area — located in White Lake Township roughly 15 miles west of Pontiac — has amazing trails, diverse plant life and thriving wildlife. For me, it was just a short drive up Telegraph Road and down M-59.
I hiked a couple of the trails June 30 and was amazed at how much they were like trails I had hiked in the northern Lower Peninsula and at how quiet and peaceful the park was.
The first trail I hiked took me around Haven Hill Lake and offered some great views of the lake and dense forest, complete with huge tress that were uprooted by a recent storm, that made me wonder if I was going to get out.
The other trail led me to the ruins of Edsel Ford’s Haven Hill Estate, which used to encompass the entire grounds of the park.
After a good hike up a steady incline that is the old drive for the Ford estate, you get to the ruins.
The first thing you notice is that it wasn’t much of an estate because all that you see is a lone, smallish cabin, but that was just the old servants quarters.
Further into the site, you see an old wooden archway and the remains of a large stone fireplace.
These, the foundation and the pool are the only signs left of the main house that burned to the ground roughly a decade ago. They are a great examples of how quickly nature takes back a developed site.
While the ruins are truly the stars of the Highland hikes, not to be out done is the plant and animal life.
One of the trails, marked No. 25 on the park's maps, is home to a representation of every tree that grows in Michigan.
And on my Tuesday hike, I saw a deer that stared me down from across the drive heading to the estate ruins and a family of turkeys along with the requisite muskrats and numerous songbirds.
Hiking Highland is definitely worth the 90-minute roundtrip drive from most parts of metro Detroit, $6 park day pass and the roughly $9 in gas it takes to get there.
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