Thru-Hiking the Waterloo-Pinckney Trail, Pt. 3: The Finale in Pinckney
- Dan Cooke
- May 9, 2023
- 9 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
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 third and final installation of our Waterloo-Pinckney Trail series covers the entirety of the Pinckney section of the trail - 14 miles of challenges, triumphs, pain, and euphoria.
"Hey Pops - it's gonna be another hour or so...sorry. Today's been a wild card."
Those were probably the last words that my jet-lagged father wanted to hear as he waited patiently at the Silver Lake Trailhead in Pinckney Recreation Area, and he masked his reasonable annoyance, well, reasonably. In his defense, I explicitly said that I would be arriving at the trailhead around 4:30PM. I would blow that arrival time by nearly an hour.
In my defense, I never planned on arriving that evening at all. Reddit reviews and relentless rain can have that effect on a perfectly-planned itinerary. Add an ambitious, adventurous, and borderline reckless outdoorsman spirit, and you end up with a 10K day turning into a half marathon+ expedition. At a personal record-pace for backpacking.
If you're asking yourself "Why would you do that to yourself?", you're definitely not alone. I was asking myself the same question between miles 7 - 14 on Day 3.
But at 8 a.m. - while waking up to yet another morning of rain pelting my tent fly - I simply couldn't stomach the thought of breaking down camp (in the rain), hiking a quick 6 miles (in the rain), setting up camp again (in the rain), and then potentially repeating the process all over again the following day. If it were another 20 miles to Silver Lake, then yes, I would have kept to the plan. But 14 miles...? I could push through. Especially with a boost from the intermittent presence of my brother James of Cooke Productions, my "documentary crew" for the first half of the day.
"Alright," I said to myself as I looked back down the hill at Green Lake's Site #8 to confirm that I had left no trace. "No stopping now. The way is through. Let's get it!"
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