Thru-Hiking the Waterloo-Pinckney Trail, Pt. 1: Embracing Solitude

In honor of Earth Week, we embraced the challenge of thru-hiking the Detroit's region's most rigorous backpacking route: the Waterloo-Pinckney Trail. This first installment of our 3 part series on the Waterloo-Pinckney Trail highlights the trail's initial physical and psychological impressions - especially on solo hikers.

Every journey has its beginning, and this 38-mile one started in a basement. Next to a gas-lit fireplace. My parents' basement fireplace to be exact, during a brief period of solitude amidst the mayhem of the holidays. My respite would consist of cracking open the 3rd edition of Best Tent Camping: Michigan, my most recent impulse research buy from my local REI, a never-ending well for Expedition Detroit content inspiration.

This particular fireside research session started with a narrow, basic agenda: learn more about southeast Michigan's best campsites from an expert's opinion. Nothing too special about it. And yet, while reading about Pinckney Recreation Area's Crooked Lake and Blind Lake Campgrounds, I underlined a sentence that struck me as noteworthy. Then I opted to highlight that same sentence, signaling an "Ah-Ha!" moment. The sentence read like this:

"Pinckney Recreation Area and the neighboring Waterloo Recreation Area attract thousands of hikers and mountain bikers annually, and avid backpackers come for southern Michigan's longest hike, the 36-mile Waterloo-Pinckney Trail, which was created to offer overnight hikers a multiday trip."

"Huh," I thought to myself. "WTF is the Waterloo-Pinckney Trail and why have I never heard of it before."

I dog-eared the page for future reference, meaning I planned on returning to research the trail at some unspecified time in the future. Another item on my - thankfully - never-ending list of "hidden gem" outdoor recreation opportunities to research and explore in the Detroit region. I finished reading about Crooked Lake and Blind Lake's camping opportunities.

I turned the page to the book's next entry: Green Lake Campground at Waterloo Recreation Area. "Awesome," I thought, "another Detroit region gem." Lo and behold, a few paragraphs into this section, another sentence leapt out at me:

"Hikers looking for more than an afternoon stroll, however, will want to take note of the 36-mile Waterloo-Pinckney Trail, which connects Pinckney Recreation Area with the Waterloo Recreation Area."

Call it intuition or superstition, but I got the message that a higher power appeared to be sending me. I put the book down. I opened my laptop. Curiosity evolved into research, research ignited inspiration, and inspiration surrendered to active planning.

The origination trailhead of the Waterloo-Pinckney Trail at Big Portage Lake, feat. my 15-year-old REI backpack.

Five months later, I'm staring at the "WPT" trailhead at Big Portage Lake. Despite my decade+ of backpacking experience in wild places like the U.P, Colorado, Utah, Alaska, and Peru, I have never backpacked solo before. Not even an overnight, let alone ~40 miles over a four day, three night planned solo trek.

A tangible nervous excitement grips me, heightened by the fact that there's only one other car parked in the massive trailhead parking lot. All signs pointed towards a journey of solitude in my future, which as a natural introvert I'm not entirely against. I loosely planned this trip to enhance my physical and mental self-reliance, and the empty trailhead further supported that there would be no shortcuts around executing this agenda.

"Alright," I say audibly to myself as I lock my truck for the fifth time and sling my overweight backpack over my shoulders.

"Let's go."

MEET THE WATERLOO-PINCKNEY TRAIL

My infatuation with the Waterloo-Pinckney Trail started with curiosity but waded into the realm of frustration. While the Detroit region is inundated with world-class day hiking, mountain biking, road cycling, and paddling trails, we're severely lacking in our true "backpacking" opportunities. I'm referring to backpacking experiences in the same vein as the world's greatest hikes. For the United States, that shortlist typically consists of the "Triple Crown" trails (Appalachian, Continental Divide, and Pacific Crest Trails), although Michigan's resident North Country National Scenic Trail also belongs as a fourth gem in the crown. Isle Royale National Park's Greenstone Ridge Trail should be on each Great Lakes backpacker's bucket list as well.

In our corner of the natural world, we identified only six "backpacking trails" suitable for overnight thru-hiking. Yes, the completion of the Iron Belle Trail - including the construction of accessible rustic campgrounds - will fundamentally change the landscape of our backpacking opportunities. The completion of the Gordie Howe International Bridge in 2024 will further fan this flame by connecting southeast Michigan's trails to greater Ontario's existing trail network. But for now, we have our six backpacking trails, the most prominent of which being the Waterloo-Pinckney Trail.

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