Today, Dillon, a couple friends, and I checked out the Gold Mine Trail at the Mackinaw River State Fish and Wildlife Area. This was a trail none of us had been to before and there really aren’t a lot of reviews out there on it. Its roughly 2.5 miles long and a loop. After you park, you walk past the dove fields. This time of year, there is hunting in progress, so just be cautious of dove and squirrel hunters.
After you get past this, you enter into the woods. The trail is very well maintained and about 3 people wide most of the way.
About 75% of the trail is pretty flat. The rest that were inclines were not that bad. Somewhat steep, but short. The trail splits at one point and there is a sign that says “Long Trail – Short Trail”. We went to the left on the Long Trail.
We were the only ones on the trail the whole time we were there. Walking in, we saw someone dove hunting in the distance. Leaving there was someone in the parking lot. Although the trails are really well maintained, I don’t think its a very busy area.
We came up to a creek which follows along the path a little ways, which is pretty dried up right now. This area is a little more rolling and very pretty and peaceful woods.
Shortly after this, we came to a “T” in the road with a sign pointing “Long Trail” at the direction we came from, “Short Trail” to the right, then another trail to the left, but no sign saying what it was or where it went. We decided to hop on “Short Trail” since we figured it took us back to the parking lot. It was a fairly good incline up, but short and the trail lived up to its name because we reached the original “T” from where the two split in no time at all.
At this point, we decided to do another loop, just to get some extra mileage. My fitbit registered at about 2.15 miles at that point, but my AllTrails recording was showing just at 2 miles. We turned back the way we came so we did the loop backwards.
At one point, I let Dillon out to walk a bit, although it didn’t last long because he was getting too distracted and I was ready for lunch.
Overall, I really enjoyed this trail. I’ve submitted it to AllTrails so it hopefully shows up as a new trail in the app. It currently is not listed. I would like to go back to see where that other trail leads to, sometime. Maybe you have done this and know?
With doing the loop twice, we did about 4.25 miles today, so not too bad!
Thanks for hiking with Dillon and I!
