Love this place!…read more Finding fun and entertaining parks for my 1 year old is so much fun. I love this one. Not only is there three plays capes, there are swings, walking trails with a big pond to watch wildlife, basketball courts, volleyball courts, tennis courts, baseball diamonds, and a gazebo area you can rent for parties if you please. Little guy never gets bored here! This will always be one of our top parks!

This park is absolutely beautiful. Honestly that's an understatement. There's so much nature,…read morepretty colors and animals to be seen! This park has been my weekly staple in my walking routine. I love walking around the pond and seeing all the ducks, geese, and squirrels. There's plenty of benches to sit and just enjoy life. No matter the time of the day or how hot or cold the weather is, there's always people here and plenty to do. A couple play grounds, basketball court, tennis courts, and baseball courts makes it a very popular place to bring the family. You can also fish in the pond. Bring your camera and take plenty of breath taking photos. Heritage Garden is a perfect spot for senior pictures, family photos and even prom photos. The park is dog friendly. Please clean up after your pet. There is literally trash cans everywhere, so also don't litter.

If you are looking for one of the most peaceful escapes with a touch of nature right in Sterling…read moreHeights, Clinton River North Park delivers exactly that. I visited this park recently for a relax solo moment and for a afternoon walk I also found myself excited by how much I truly enjoyed it. The walking trails are well-maintained and also run alongside water, offering a beautiful view especially in the early evening. You'll find a walking, jogging, and even a relaxed bike ride. The natural landscape provides tons of photo-worthy spots. Number one thing is don't expect a playground or bathrooms at the entrance. it's clearly designed for people who enjoy quiet outdoor times. Me personally, my favorite part is for sure the serenity. It does not feel loud or crowded, it's a great place to clear your head, even journal, or enjoy some solo time. I would say one small area that can use some improvement could be better trail entrances, especially for first time visitors. I do recommended Clinton River North Park for a great park attraction, it's calm atmosphere and natural beauty. I truly believe it's worth visiting.

It's a long bumpy ride into this park but it connects to lots of trails, the kayak ramp, a…read moreplayground and around the corner is the nature center. This is a great place to go to unwind or spend the day in the park alone or with family.

There's so much for everyone at this park in Troy; a brand new playscape with a ninja wall, covered…read morepavilion, a paved walking trail which leads to small rustic trail in the woods, a wonderful lake for fishing or kayaking, and restrooms. There's plenty of native plants and wildlife, beautiful blooming flowers in July, and a unique bamboo tunnel. Free to the public to enjoy!

Sylvan Glen Lake Park is a hidden gem right off Rochester Road…read more It is great for a walk, picnic, and fishing. The back and forth walking path is paved leading around the lake into a beautiful forest area. Only about a third of the lake is accessible since the neighboring golf course locks the northern side. The accessible lakeside is shallow. Along the lake you will find benches to rest at or fishermen young and old. The onsite restrooms and water fountain were super helpful! Sylvan Glen Lake Park is a great spot to spend for the day or even stop on the way home from work for a fresh breath of air!

Preserved land for all to enjoy. Don't expect a physical nature center. Instead, check out the…read moretrails that lead you along the Clinton River. As an extra bonus, they have bathrooms and a pavilion.

I'm not Mr. Outdoors or anything but I've hiked a few trails in my day. The Porcupine Mountains,…read moreCanadian Rockies, the Pinnacles in Berea, Kentucky, Castle Rock in North Carolina and just basic stuff here in Southeast Michigan. Barton nature area in Ann Arbor, the trails at Lake St. Clair Metropark, the E. L. Johnson nature center and one in Livonia whose name is slipping me right now, etc. I wasn't expecting Nicholson nature center to be anything epic like some of the earlier entries on that list. You can tell that by looking at a map. But there's pleasant enough hiking trails nestled in Michigan suburbia. Nicholson might qualify as one of those if it wasn't so damn muddy! I've never hiked such muddy trails. You best wear big rubber fishermen's boots to trudge through this slop or get big mud stains running way up the side of your jeans like I did. It's a nice enough little swath of woods here but just not worth it for the mud puddles. I kind of wish Barrymore's would buy this forest and build giant roller coasters back here.

These trails are fantastic and perfect for a leisurely walk, offering amazing views. Plus, there's…read morea spot for disc golf, and it's a great park for walking your dogs. In the winter, there's even a hill for sledding! What a great workout today!

I can't speak for summer and autumn but this is a nice park in the winter and spring. The sledding…read morehill looked fun, they have a bunny hill level for little tykes and the full hill for older kids. I'm definitely too mature for that myself, though. Okay, so I looked around at three local stores and they were all sold out of sleds apart from a wooden toboggan that was more costly than a nearby kayak. I'm blaming that on too many months of quarantine and joblessness. The trails are scenic and more extensive than the map led me to believe. I don't think it's to scale; the back 40 goes on for much longer than I figured. I'm glad I turned around when I did on my winter hike. Come springtime and warmer temps the whole northern expanse was just about the right amount of nature and exercise. I mainly did the southern circuit in the snow and the sweeping elevation changes and the train trestle over the Belle River were just lovely. Some of the trails could be better marked. On my winter visit I wasn't even sure if the park ended at a low clearance bridge where a road goes over the Belle River. Turns out more than half the park is past there and crossing the road seems to be the preferred way to get there, though the troll way seems more adventurous. There's some power lines with mowed grass that intersect some of the trails and it's unclear if that isn't also a trail. I don't think so but I got kind of lost at one point and tried to use that to double back and got caught up in some sogginess. If you stay close to the Belle River you shouldn't have that problem, though. I also wandered through some of the twisting mountain bike trails trying to find my way back. Just judging from being on foot they didn't look anywhere near as fun as the bike trails at River Bends. Ultimately I ended up using the Google maps on my phone to get back to where I needed to be. There's equestrian trails here, too, and a nice clubhouse with restrooms, vending machines, picnic tables and pamphlets for this and other parks in St. Clair county. This is a quiet, laid back park but I don't think I'd drive too far out of my way to get here.

This place is SO fun and I can't believe I never knew it existed. It's definitely geared a bit…read moretowards kids in the beginning of the hike with a bunch of fun, interactive things set up near the parking lot, but this is a great little hike you can do with your friend and/or dog with a lot less traffic than Paint Creek Trail, which connects to Dinosaur Hill, or the Rochester Municipal Park, which is located right next door. A very short hike, clocking in at about 1 mile, with the nature preserve seemingly split in two by Paint Creek. It was fun and is a very quick hike with changes in scenery that keeps the hike interesting. Another great option in the Rochester/downtown Rochester area for all skill levels to take advantage of! :)

Nice place to take your dogs or your kids. The trails are well kept and connect to the Paint Creek…read moretrail. The trail map is posted at different locations which makes it very easy to know where you are and how to get to where you want to go.

Holland Ponds is the best place for hiking! My friends and I love coming here with our dogs because…read morethere is a river through the entire place, which means plenty of opportunities for the dogs to swim! The park is also connected to the apple trail, which leads to Yates Cider Mill, so it's honestly the best place to spend an afternoon! The dogs have fun, the humans have fun, you can take a mid-hike break to fuel up with cider and donuts, and then head back through Holland Ponds! The only downside to the park is that it's close to a shooting range of some sort, far enough away that you can't see anything, only hear things, so for dogs that spook a bit towards fireworks and the like, they will be able to hear sounds that might make them a bit jumpy.

I like this park for many reasons, but mainly because it has that true nature feel to it with so…read moremuch to look at and take in as you walk and meander it's trails. The main trail is gravel, but there are areas that veer off here and there along the way that take you off the beaten path and into some 'real' nature trails. With so much to offer, you can venture off and explore the foliage, ponds, wildflowers, rabbits, birds, frogs and the elusive (at least for me so far) Blue Herons. In fact this park is a Blue Heron Rookery and a nesting area for them as well. Look up into the trees while walking along their nesting areas because they build their large 3 foot by 3 foot nests high in the trees out of twigs. There are signs as well warning the public not to enter their sacred nesting areas. It's very quiet, serene and even a tad rustic compared to the other parks in the county. It does have benches along the way, but the grasses in mid summer have grown up and around some of them making them not so easy to sit on. They also have a small pavilion that once had a picnic table, but the table is now gone, so it's 'just a pavilion' hoping for another table one day so it can once again have visitors sit under it's covered and shady rest area. But why not carry one of those fold up chairs and heck, bring a picnic bag lunch and enjoy a quiet meal as you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere. Make sure to look up and side to side as you're traversing the trail because there are things to look at all around if you take the time to explore. You're so close to the city, yet so far away when you're in the middle of this park so take the time to enjoy all of it's offerings. There are areas where you can get a nice picturesque glimpse of the lily pads in the water and listen to the frogs croaking their tunes as you meander along the path. If you like the type of setting where you seem one with nature and you like a calm, serene setting, this park is a must to visit. Who knows, maybe you'll get lucky and see one or more of the Blue Herons. If not, there's always next time because this peaceful park is worth exploring when you want to get away from the city grind.

This park may be small, but it's such a nice park in the middle of downtown Auburn Hills. They have…read morefree concerts in the park on various Fridays throughout the summer. The Clinton River flows right through the middle of it so they have streams and areas where the kids play in the water, and they also have a splash pad for the kids to play in. There seems to be abundant parking spaces and friendly police officers to guide you in and out of the parking areas.

Nice park in downtown. Next to Clinton river. Water is clear and there are some wildlife lurking…read morearound. People mostly walk their dogs and fish there