Hiking Sleepy Hollow State Park, Michigan

When you have a state park just close to your home why would you ever wait? At this point I am completely in love with Michigan and just want to explore everything in here. 

My husband and I travel a lot, but never have done a planned hiking. So i thought this would be it, close to home and around 8 miles. That would be perfect for a start. So we picked a date, and decided to start early morning on 05/07/16.I was so excited for our first hiking trip, but just two days before our hike, the weather forecast changed for Saturday, and showed heavy thunderstorm.I thought we will have to postpone and so we didnt do any preparations and slept really late on Friday.

Next day morning to our surprise the weather changed to Sunny with clouds. We couldnt wait, I marinated some chicken and put it in the oven quickly. We made plans on which trail to take and what all to carry. After all these mess, we started by 10:30 from home.

We reached Sleepy Hollow by 11:AM. The moment we entered the park we know why people liked it. It was so calm and deserted. I grabbed a map from the park entrance and saw all 28 miles of marked trails. We parked our car in the east picnic area and started our journey with chciken,fruits, nuts and 4 bottles of water. We both were wearing knee length pans and full sleeved tops. Everything felt comfortable and we started.

Sleepy hollow state park is really beautiful with its trees/wild flowers and Lake Ovid at the center. I could smell nature, and the fragrance from the flowers on trees. Smell of lake.Smell of mud. I felt really happy. This is how the trail starts, with a great road, though not paved wide and clear enough. 

    

As we progressed the trails became narrower and woods became taller. We had great views of lake and small islands in the lakes. Trails were exceptionally deserted. The wooded areas reminded me of movies, with water which reflects the woods.

 
 

After around 2 miles we were feeling incredibly hungry since we know we had baked chicken with us. We found a beach area of the lake and decided to take our first break. We ate half of our lunch and sat there for some time looking at the lake. There were some people who were kayaking, and i was thinking this should be a great place for kayaking. Calm water surrounded by forest.

                             

We continued our journey shortly after. Everything felt so good, forest,birds ,flowers,lake. After around 3 miles, the trails started getting complicated. Now you have climbs and wet land. The only thing that i didnt like in this whole experience was wet lands. First of all I am terrified of snakes, so i was thinking what if there is snake inside! and our shoes got drenched, including our socks which really slowed us down.
        

As the trail progressed we noticed a small stream. I almost ran to it and washed our shoes and socks and hang our hammock and rested for a while, thinking the shoe might get dried off soon. Great views and we could hear the stream flowing. 

It was around 4'0 clock now. We realized dont have time to rest longer. So we wore our wet shows again-atleast clean now and continued our journey.

                                
                                



Some great areas of the trail along the way. 

   

At around 5:30 we were near to a main road.You can stop hiking the trails at this point, or can continue. You could make a choice. All this while I was praying not to see any snakes. And luckily I didnt see a single one too. My husband confessed he saw 5 snakes. Where were I! I didnt see a single one! But after hearing that i felt like i was losing my courage. So we decided to shorten our hike and took the road. I dont have any pictures of the snake, well its good.I am so glad that i didnt have to see any. A squirrel in its home, beside the road:

                                  

At around 6, we reached back at east picnic area.

I am extremely glad that I did it, and want to do more hiking. Its absolutely beautiful to walk , to see ,smell and feel the nature once in a while.I felt like I was in a movie or documentary about woods and lakes. I am already looking forward to the next one.