#TrailTuesday: Belle Isle's Lighthouse and Blue Heron Lagoon Trail

Dan Cooke
Nov 8, 2023
8 min read

Updated: Mar 12

Welcome back to our #TrailTuesday Series! This edition loops around the wild trails nestled into the easternmost wilderness of Detroit's most beautiful island - Belle Isle Park. Join us as we rediscover Belle Isle's stunning Lighthouse and Blue Heron Lagoon trail!

Trails inspire us. They encourage ingenuity, community, and continuity of connection. They challenge us to push our limits, reward us with stunning vistas, and congratulate us with post-hike brews. Trails provide the perfect venue for brainstorming business ventures, reimagining better futures, and letting go of past hurts and failures.

Every trail innately carries these beautiful attributes, which in turn draws legions of outdoor enthusiasts to Metro Detroit's trailheads year after year. These benefits also explain why the Michigan, Canadian, and U.S. governments are investing millions into building and improving our regional trail system.

For us at Expedition Detroit, we've found ourselves inspired on a daily basis by Detroit's greater trail system. The opening lyrics to U2's song "City of Blinding Lights" prophesies that "The more you see, the less you know," which we've found to be absolutely true while navigating the Detroit region's outdoor destinations. Every outing that originated with a specific agenda - "let's document a hike of X trail" - finished with three or more ideas for future article, collaboration prospects, or guided adventure opportunities. Even repeat hikes of a particular crowd-favorite trail like Brighton's Penosha Trail follow this trend.

But of all the trails that have inspired us over the past year, one specific trail sticks out in my mind. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the "Expedition Detroit idea" originated from this exact trailhead. A trail experience that provided the spark for a venture that ignited into this platform. The unwavering belief that Detroit's natural environs of pristine waterways, rugged moraine ridge lines, dense hardwood forests, lively marshes, and state of the art urban trails provide the ideal ecosystem for a revolutionary approach to developing our outdoor industry. Better yet, the hypothesis that all of those outdoor elements coexist within an interconnected, easily accessible, and increasingly dynamic geographic area.

Yes, a single trail located in the dead center of our international environment, where every natural, cultural, and historic feature that makes Detroit a world-class outdoor destination comes together in just over 2 miles of shoreline loops, inspired those core beliefs.

That trail is Belle Isle Park's Lighthouse and Blue Heron Lagoon trail. It's our pleasure to reintroduce Belle Isle and its most remote trail now.

Guided Hike: Belle Isle Park

Book Now