Lost Nation State Game Area: Hike Reports

This is a series of hike reports that I originally posted on the Great Lakes Hikes Yahoo Group:

01/19/01

Hillsdale County: North Country trail through Lost Nations state game area and Baw Beese Lake. I've heard that the local NCTA group is going to have a bivouac area there soon for overnights. But the Lost Nation section is great - about as hilly as the hilly sections of Waterloo-Pinckney.

01/20/02

I did some hiking yesterday on the North Country Trail in Hillsdale County through the Lost Nation SGA.

Some comments:

Beautiful. Beautiful. Sections of this trail are as nice as any trail I've seen in southern Michigan. At one point, I was on the "peak" along the valley of a rushing stream as it made an oxbow down below. A few hundred feet later, I crossed a little stream making a ten foot drop over some rocks. Then I saw a couple of frozen lakes a few steps ahead. Lots of hills. Just wonderful.

Trail conditions: Very tough in some spots. Lots of deadfall from some fall storms. It seems that the storms that took out the trails at TK Lawless and Kellogg Forest also did this one in at some places. It's really unfortunate, because you can see fresh blazes on the trees and the trail is wonderfully laid out. One other problem are two gaps that necessitate road hikes. One is a half mile on pavement (bad), the other is dirt on a little used road (not bad).

My understanding is that dispersed camping is allowed with free permit until May 15. It's a little out of the way, but it's a nice overnight in Southern Michigan - a rare thing.

04/23/02

Hey Guys!

I spent some time after work the last two days hiking sections of the North Country Trail in Lost Nation State Game Area in Hillsdale County (extreme southern Michigan).

Map: http://www.midnr.com/pdfs/wildlife/sga/lostnatn2001.pdf

Last night, I started from the middle parking area on Tripp Rd. in section 14 and hiked the dotted line (NCT) west, then north. I followed blue blazes until I got to the parking area on the extreme southern fringe of section 10. From there, the NCT seems to dead end on the southern side of the E. Branch of the St. Joseph River. It's a nice place to dead end, but I was a little disappointed. There is a small dirt road that crosses the river nearby, and I'm going to check to see if I can make it to M-34 following the north/east bank of the river. That would put it in striking range of the Baw Beese Trail. BTW, the trail in this section has the feel of a rail trail. It's an old two track, but the terrain is pretty - swamps/ponds bordered by hills. I was struck by how much the "spring colors" of the trees seemed similar to fall colors. Round Trip hike was approximately three miles.

Today, I hiked from the parking area near the romantically-named "Lake No. 8" in section 24 to the NCT intersection with Pittsford Rd. Dudes! This is a great hike. I passed four or five lakes, one small waterfall, followed a small stream and looked down an impressive valley to the St. Joseph River. The coolest thing was all the hills. This has to be one of the hilliest sections of trail in southern Michigan. Up and down. Up and down. Close to Pittsford Rd. is a hill with a USGS marker that I think tops out at almost 1100 feet. The view is great. It almost felt like I was in the mountains. Oh, and the wildflowers were spectacular. I love trilliums. The only drawbacks were a few muddy spots and about ten big trees that came down in a winter storm. They are close to the ground and navigated without too much effort. Round Trip tonight: 5miles.

You can get an 8 or 10 mile one way hike out of this place with a few small road walks. Total hikers observed on all my hikes here: 0.

10/01/02

With a few sections of road hiking, the trail through Lost Nation and the Baw Beese Trail are pretty long. There was talk about a bivouac area being created, although I don't know if that ever came to pass. Right now, however, it is legal to disperse camp in the state game area. Just watch out for hunters. There are some really nice sections there, but it's a place that attracts crazies.

10/6/02

Hi again!

I got sick of grading papers at school, so I headed 25 minutes west to the NCT in Hillsdale. I hiked some of the Baw Beese Trail. It now appears to be continuous from Black Bridge Rd at the intersection with M-34 all the way to Jonesville. That's a distance on the order of fourteen miles. South from that section, there is a small gap into the Lost Nation SGA with another mostly continuous 7 or 8 mile section. So, you could get about 20-25 miles of hiking out of it maybe.

The northern sections of the Baw Beese suck. It's a blacktopped sidewalk less than a foot removed from M-99. The trail is really nice in the city of Hillsdale. It's one of the more interesting paved railtrails that I've seen with lake views and some nice wooded areas as well as some city history elements. South from there is the undeveloped rail bed to M-34. It's kind of nice and ends at an old rail trestle. The Lost Nation section is way cool, but unhikeable right now because of the hunting. I saw a guy with a deer on his car truck roof - first time I've seen that this year.

Question: Does the NCT blaze paved railtrail sections? I saw abunch of people out on the trail. It seems to me that those rollerbladers and bikers might buy into the dream a bit if they knew they were on the trail. I know this has been raised on the board recently, but is this official NCT policy not to blaze this kind oftrail.

02/02/03

Great stuff. Bummer that I didn't hear about this when you were passing through Lost Nations. I kind of like that place, except for the dumping ground areas.

I read an item from the trip journal about a 3+ mile trail section on private land near Lost Nation SGA. I was vaguely aware of this after a workday with the Baw Beese Chapter a few years ago, but I have no idea where this is. Do you have any details? Road directions/parking suggestions?

07/20/04

Also, I know that a few years ago the NCT was working on a bivouac area in the Lost Nation SGA. Perhaps there is a place there that can be camped even during the summer. I would thoroughly research any and all possibilities.