Dansville State Game Area: Hike Reports

Dansville State Game Area is to the southeast of Lansing, MI. These hike reports were originally posted on the Great Lakes Hike yahoo group:

04/03/02

I got out for a few miles this evening in the Dansville SGA - maps on DNR web site. The place is just north of the Ingham/Jackson County line. The simplest way is to take US-127 to M-36 East. Turn right on Meridian Rd. Once you hit Dexter Trail, you start getting into the SGA.

The trails I hiked were old two tracks. While not at all rugged, they were very pleasant to hike on. There were some very nice pine forests and the terrain was flat to slightly rolling. It looks to me like it might be possible to get a nice long - 6 to 8 or more mile -hike in there. The best part was Hewes Lake, a nice, unspoiled southern Michigan lake. I got there just before sunset as the reds and oranges fired across the water. As I returned to my car, friendly flakes of snow danced about the sky. Not a bad way to end the day.

04/21/02

Friday night, I bisected Dansville State Game Area in southern Ingham County. There is continuous trail from the work station on Dexter Trail to down to Ewers Rd. That's about two miles one way, so four miles total. The place has a few hills and is really swampy. I wish I had a camera to show the three makeshift bridges over some streams in the southern portions of my route. Yikes. But I didn't slip. Oh, and the bugs! Got my first bug bites of the year. I'm working on finding a circle route or extended point to point in this place. I'll post more as I learn the area.

http://www.michigandnr.com/publications/pdfs/huntingwildlifehabitat/sga/dansville.pdf