The 5 Summits: Conquering the Five Most Iconic Hilltops near Detroit
- Dan Cooke
- Apr 10, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: 15 hours ago
No ropes, no worries. Live your next adventure in Metro Detroit exploring each of the "5 Summits" - Expedition Detroit's favorite destinations for hiking the five most iconic hilltops near Detroit!
There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering. All the rest are merely games.
Those aren't my words, although I appreciate the hot take.
No; those were spoken (likely after a Papa Doble or two) by Ernest Hemingway, the renown American author whose appetite for adventure rivaled that of Theodore Roosevelt.
What's the commonality among these three true "sports"? According to Outdoor Research, simply because they can kill you. However, according to Hemingway scholars, these three endeavors mandate that one achieves the best performance that they personally can for success - or else face potentially fatal consequences.
For us at Expedition Detroit, the beauty of mountaineering - or reaching any summit or high point - lies in the pursuit's binary definition of success. You summit, or you do not. Your body and willpower lead you to a place of prominence, or they do not.
And, once such a feat has been accomplished, it can never be taken from you. You will have earned the ability to share your experience, guide others, or reflect back on a special moment in your life's grand journey. Simply because you did it.
Will you experience breath-taking, snowcapped mountaintop sunrises within the Detroit region? No - we unfortunately are not blessed with such topography.
However, the Detroit region is not nearly as flat as most residents and non-residents alike tend to think. I trained entirely for my Kilimanjaro summit along the rolling trails listed within this article, as well as several other rigorous trails like Pontiac Lake's MTB Trail and Highland's A-B-C-D Trail System. The net result? In part, the credibility to write this article.
Summits and high points - no matter the altitude - are worthy of exploring and celebrating. From their geographic significance to remoteness to prominence along a favorite trail, reaching a summit should always warrant a brief moment to pause, take in your surroundings, take a sip of water (or trail beer), and smile. Because that adventurous moment, lived and experienced here in Metro Detroit, will forever be yours.
Let's start the adventure. Here are Expedition Detroit's 5 Summits: the most iconic hilltops near Detroit.
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5. Wayne Hill | Maybury State Park | Northville, Michigan
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