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Imp Lake Trail LbNA #42877

Owner:Turtle's Mom
Plant date:Aug 19, 2008
Location: Ottawa National Forest, Michigan
City:Watersmeet
County:Gogebic
State:Michigan
Boxes:1
Found by: Turtle's Mom
Last found:Sep 23, 2015
Status:FFaO
Last edited:Aug 12, 2016
In the Ottawa National Forest there is a beautiful forest campground located on Imp Lake. It is 4 miles east of Watersmeet, Michigan, off US 2. Turn south on FR 3978 for about 1.5 miles. Keep driving past the road that takes you to the first 15 campsites, stop at the picnic area or boat launch at the far end of the lake. Imp Lake is home to a pair of loons who raise their family there every spring. It is also a great kayaking and swimming lake.

Across from the boat launch is an interpretive hiking trail about 1.5 miles long. It is on this trail that you will find a letterbox. You will also find old growth forests of eastern hemlock trees, yellow birch and maple along this trail. See if you can recognize the evergreen called hemlock - dark, furrowed bark, enormous trunks, short, soft, dark needles. These are slow-growing, long-lived trees. Some may be more than 300 years old. Yellow birch are common here, too. The bark is bronze-yellow and very flakey as you would expect from a birch. These, too, can live more than 300 years old. Interspersed among these trees are the sugar maples. Where light shines on the forest floor, the maples are growing in great numbers.

After you have hiked about a mile through this lovely forest, you will cross a long boardwalk over a bog filled with moss and pitcher plants. You will come to a platform that holds a picnic table and wooden chair. Stop, and when when you are rested, stand near the left post of the platform and look at the uprooted tree. At a compass reading of 255 degrees (SW) look for the hemlock holding "hands" with the yellow birch. Walk 16 steps in that direction to the two trees. Look under their "hands" where there is a hole to hide things.

Hike length: 1 mile