Parker Mill County Park

After visiting over a hundred parks in Ann Arbor this spring and summer, I found out about a new park from a friend. I knew of its existence, and its exact location, and I’d biked right up to it, but never actually gone into it. It wasn’t on my park list because it’s a county, not a city, park, but I was told it was worth visiting, so I biked over to check it out one weekend. Like many other destinations in Ann Arbor, the optimal driving route is not the optimal biking route. The main parking lot is at the corner of two busy roads right by entrance/exit ramps to US 23, but there’s access to the other side of the park from the Border to Border (B2B) Trail. The B2B makes a funny turn at the end of Gallup Park before going into Ypsi, so I usually use that as my turnaround point when I ride the B2B in that direction. The other option is to keep going straight into Parker Mill Park, which I was mildly curious about, but never curious enough to actually investigate, until now.

The weather was starting to cool off and I was also hoping that people would be busy with school/work/other activities now that things were (rightly or not) opening up again, so I ventured onto the Gallup Park side of the B2B for the first time in 2020 on a Saturday afternoon. Similarly to my ride the previous week on the Bandemer Park half of the B2B, it was less horrible than I was prepared for. I’d describe it as busy, but not crowded, except for a couple areas in Gallup Park. Coming in from the Gallup Park side, I walked about three-quarters of a mile on a paved shared-use trail to the park’s namesake, the Parker family’s former grist and cider mills, built in 1873 and 1887 respectively. The grist mill is still operational and contains the original equipment while the cider mill was converted to a museum; because of coronavirus, both were closed when I was there.

Parker Mill grist and cider mills

Besides the cider and grist mills (plus a log cabin), there are a few nature trails, two small loops and a longer boardwalk out-and-back. The trails follow Fleming Creek, which flows into the Huron River, and at one point cut under the railroad tracks and lead into Forest Nature Area, which is listed on Ann Arbor’s parks and recreation department. My guess is that the city of Ann Arbor owns the Forest Nature Area land but it’s managed by the county together with Parker Mill. Whatever the explanation, I got a bonus park out of my trip to Parker Mill.

Fleming Creek

Overall, the trails were decent. Besides the paved shared-use trail through the park, they’re only open to foot traffic. The hiking trails go through wooded areas, explore riparian¹ and wetland ecosystems, and as an added bonus, have informative interpretive signs. I can appreciate a good interpretive sign. Like most of the Midwest, there was no discernable change in elevation throughout the park. Traffic noise was prevalent especially by the grist and cider mills, though partially drowned out by the creek. The southern portion of the park is across the train tracks from the Ann Arbor Wastewater Treatment plant, so that’s a definite minus if the wind’s blowing the wrong way. But in the greater context of Ann Arbor and my car-less existence, Parker Mill is reasonably accessible, has unpaved trails in nature, and isn’t a zoo filled with screaming children, people blasting music, and/or drunk people, so it checks off enough boxes that I would go back.

Boardwalk trail

¹New word from the park brochure, meaning “relating to or living or located on the bank of a natural watercourse (such as a river) . . .” [Taken from my friends Merriam and Webster.]