Port Sheldon Natural Area in Ottawa County

January 14, 2013
Port Sheldon Natural Area is another Ottawa County property that we have thoroughly explored on the east side of 160th Avenue.  This trip we are heading west.

Port Sheldon Natural Area has 440 acres of gently rolling hills, woods, wildlife ponds, and Ten Hagen Creek.  You will find it in Port Sheldon Township, Ottawa County, Michigan along 160th Avenue between Port Sheldon Street and Van Buren Street.  There are two access points with parking and maps.

This is the new map at the kiosk, I marked a big red X where we went this trip.  Don't worry I only marked my photo not the county map.  It was a cold 22 degrees the day we went for this hike.

So we followed the north side of the loop trail.  The loop goes around the outside of this large open area.

The trail doesn't go to Ten Hagen Creek, so we cut off to look at the creek. 

 Ten Hagen Creek at Port Sheldon Natural Area

I had hand drawn a map of the area using Bing maps, so I knew the county property continued on the other side of Ten Hagen Creek. We found a log and crossed easily.  Well, one of us crossed easily.  :)

 This is our bridge, and the "grass" (or the woods in this case), was greener on the other side.

There are some hilly areas here.  Also lots of trails made by quads or previous owners.  We wandered until we came to boundary markers, then went back to the creek.   We just happen to come to the same fallen tree that we had crossed earlier.  The creek isn't huge but too deep for our boots.

There is a smaller creek to the south of the loop trail, we checked that out too.

  We followed the trail back towards the car, and the sun even came out for a while.

I know the pictures are a bit dull, and even telling where we went doesn't sound very exciting but it was fun.  We went somewhere that we had never been before, we got to cross a creek and "find" some beautiful woods on the other side. 

We left the park area and drove to where Ten Hagen Creek passes under Butternut Drive, this is west of where we had just been walking.  We came to Ten Hagen Creek and noticed some  Muscovy Ducks (Cairina moschata). This is a
large duck native to Mexico, Central and South America.
I think this group might be domesticated birds, but I don't
know that for sure. 

That's all for this trip.  Well, we stopped briefly at the Port Sheldon Township hall and park.  And we went to Habor Island in Grand Haven to see the Aurora, once the largest wooden steamer on the Great Lakes,  the shipwreck is revealed by low water levels.  Grand Haven Tribune link http://www.grandhaventribune.com/article/261651

 

Port Sheldon Natural Area

January 5, 2012 Port Sheldon Natural Area is Ottawa County park property, located in Port Sheldon Township. There are two small parking areas on 160th Avenue between Port Sheldon and Van Buren Streets.  This open space land is 440 acres including gently rolling terrain, woods, wildlife ponds and Ten Hagen Creek. 

More info  http://www.co.ottawa.mi.us/ParksVI/Parks/portsheldon.htm

The first thing I noticed when we parked were all the larch (tamarack) trees.  Larch are conifers in the genus Larix. Unlike other conifers, larch lose their leaves during autumn and winter.

Let me back up, we first stopped at the Hemlock Crossing Nature Education Center.  It is just a few miles north of these open space areas, there is a nice gift/book shop here and helpful park employees.  Especially Kristen Hintz, Park Naturalist, she was very patient with us while we spent an hour and a half, rummaging through the books.  She took, in stride, Marie's squeals of delight as Marie discovered one book after the next.  I, of course, never squeal.

We finally left the park employees, with maps in our hands, and answers to our questions.  OK back to PSNA.

There are trails here but they are unmarked, we knew this ahead of time so we did research.  We had visited this place a few years back but just briefly, we really dug in this time.  Here is what we saw...

 Ponds

 Snow Flea or Springtail -  They are very tiny so the picture below just shows they are insects and not pepper on the snow.

 One of the many small creeks we crossed.

 Witch Hazel

 We sat out in the woods and had a snack, I just laid back and took a picture straight up, with the trees and blue sky, I could have stayed here a long time.

We made it south to Ten Hagen Creek, then went west looking for 160th Avenue.
This part wasn't easy, but it was fun, as we went west the woods got darker and wetter. The area was thick with hemlocks and wet, muddy areas.  We don't like to turn around and back track.  So we bravely sloshed on.  
Finally, we saw 160th and walked north to the parking area, then drove the short distance to the south part of Port Sheldon Natural Area. 
 

160th Avenue in Port Sheldon Township

 

It was getting late but we wanted to see Ten Hagen Creek at this point.  So off we go north into the woods not far to the creek.  Here we got to the edge of the creek then right in the creek. 

 Ten Hagen Creek

Happy Boots.