Hartwick Pines has been on my list of things to do since I heard about it at a meeting of the Michigan Geographic Alliance back in the ’90s. Imagine a stand of virgin forest that somehow escaped the logging industry that put Michigan on the map.
Hartwick Pines was named after Edward E. Hartwick, who died of illness in France in 1918. His wife, Karen, donated a section of unlogged forest to preserve his memory.
The forest is in good shape and it is doing what forests do. As the trees reach the ends of their lifespans, they die.
They serve as homes for birds, bugs and small mammals. Eventually, they fall.
The nutrients return to the earth. New trees start to grow. Sometimes new species of trees take root. The forest continues.
Along the trail, there is a museum dedicated to logging. One thing I learned that never occurred to me was that much of the logging took place in the winter. The snow made it easier to move the logs. I suppose the lack of mosquitoes didn’t hurt, either.
When they would need to move the heavy logs about and they didn’t have snow to assist them, they used an implement called a Big Wheel to help them.
There is also a chapel along the trail. oddly enough, it was so overcast that day that I could barely see inside it, in spite of the windows.
I had a lovely campsite at the park. I got it backed in on the first pass!
The morning I was getting hitched up to head to the Upper Peninsula, the sun finally broke out.
It was a green and glorious day!