The short entrance road climbs to the highest point in the preserve, where you can see the north end of Elk Lake, East Grand Traverse Bay and even a slice of Mission Peninsula from a parking area.Ī grassy meadow, where sleeping cabins once stood, gently descends to even more water – the tract’s 60-acre spring-fed gem, Lake Maplehurst. You’re driving through rural Antrim County, passing perfect rows of cherry and apple orchards, faded red barns and farm stands overloaded with just-picked produce, when a sign beckons you to leave the pavement and enter a forest. Located on that strip of land that separates two of Michigan’s largest lakes, Elk and Torch, Maplehurst Natural Area is an unexpected delight to anybody who stumbles across it. They also stopped and looked up, and for a brief moment we stared at each other – Maplehurst’s current residents and the latest hiker to be charmed by this relatively obscure preserve northeast of Kewadin, Michigan. It’s been 10 years since children and counselors gathered at Maplehurst for hikes, stargazing and campfire sing-a-longs in northern Michigan. I stopped to peer down through the trees, but I already knew it wasn’t summer campers. In a ravine below me, something was walking through the woods. A hiker stops to look at a small stream in Maplehurst Natural Area.
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