A River Runs Through It

The city of Ann Arbor is shaped roughly like a heart, either anatomical or Valentines, depending on the creative license you take. It’s outlined by US 23 on the east, M-14 on the north, and I-94 on the south and west. The Huron River cuts diagonally through the city, more or less leaving the left atrium to the north of the river and the left ventricle, right atrium, and right ventricle to the south. I’ve biked the entire length of the Huron in Ann Arbor, as well as visited/hiked¹ the dozen or so parks along the river. Recently, I met up with a couple friends to share some park experiences by the river, plus catch up on the last six months or so of life.²

Both friends have been taking reasonable coronavirus precautions (i.e. not flying everywhere because cheap plane tickets #YOLO, don’t think masks are oppressive government propaganda, aren’t partying with their 500 closest friends in an unventilated basement where everyone drinks from the same cup, etc.), and we would be outdoors, moving, moderately distanced, and avoiding other people. Since things were pretty stable in Ann Arbor and hadn’t blown up with the arrival of the undergrads, I thought it was time for some real life human interaction.

I met the first friend at the Furstenberg Nature Area, between the Arboretum and Gallup Park but typically much less crowded than either of the two. It connects to Gallup Park and is opposite the river from the Border to Border trail. I’ve been there a few times now, and it’s a nice option for when I want something different from the parks right by my apartment but don’t want to haul myself all the way across Ann Arbor. It’s mostly wooded with views of the river, though it also has a boardwalk/prairie area and some marshy parts. By this time, the city-run canoe and kayak liveries had both stopped renting boats for the year because they had a positive coronavirus test early in September. They were originally going to close and reopen like they did in July, but I suspect part of the decision to straight up close for the season was because the city wasn’t happy with the university’s (lack of) reopening plans and didn’t want to deal with students. Even so, the river was surprisingly quiet, not that I missed the tube flotillas filled with drunk sunburnt (usually) young people blasting music.

The Huron from Furstenberg; the Border to Border trail is somewhere behind the trees across the river.

The next day, I met a different friend at the Bird Hills/Barton Nature Area(s). Two bike rides in two days; my calves have never looked better. I biked there on the Border to Border trail, which was less terrible than I was prepared for. It was well-trafficked, but most people were pretty good about sharing the shared-use path, minus a couple spots going through Bandemer Park. [There’s a disc golf course there and walking paths, so we shift from exercisers/commuters back towards families/sunbathers. Really. There are docks that I believe are intended for the crew team to launch their rowing shells but often get taken over by half-naked (usually) young people.]

Not from this year, but recently it's looked pretty much like this.  Earlier in the summer the rowing club or the city tried to caution-tape off the docks, but looks like that's not a thing anymore.

Anyhow, I made it to the Barton Nature Area without incident. We hiked a loop through Bird Hills, Kubler Langford Nature Area, Hilltop Nature Area, and Barton that took us through woods, by the river, and along the highway. Nothing like the roar of the M-14 to really hammer home the fact that you are in nature. Hilltop is interesting because it used to be a Girl Scout campsite, and there are still signs of it – stray picnic tables and clearings, faded informational signs, stairs to nowhere. Bird Hills is entirely wooded, but Barton is nestled between the railroad tracks and a bend in the Huron. It has, in my option, one of the best views of the river in Ann Arbor at one end and the Barton Dam and Barton Pond at the other. I do plan to publish a series of posts going into more detail about all the Ann Arbor parks I’ve visited (maybe eventually all of them), but that’ll be a bigger undertaking, so this is all for now, folks.

The Huron River

Barton Dam

Barton Pond

¹Or more accurately what I’ve termed Hiking Lite^TM. The trails are unpaved, but you never feel like you’re more than a few hundred feet from a road, there’s traffic noise unless you’re standing right next to a fast-flowing portion of the river, and the longest loop you can put together is ~5 miles, which will involve chaining multiple parks to each other.

²I’ve been following along with peoples’ lives via Facebook, and a decent percentage of my Facebook friends have announced engagements, weddings, pregnancies, graduations, moves, and new jobs since coronacation started. I’m still in school, have no job prospects lined up, and the only thing I could possibly get engaged with in the near future is my thesis.