Choose-your-own-lake adventure

Sand Lakes Quiet Area is a pretty special corner of state forest out by Kalkaska. There are a slew of tiny lakes that would make for awesome kayak jaunts, peaceful still fishing in a designated trout lake (the stream angler in me would be bored stupid, but to each their own) or just midnight splashin' with friends and beer.

I believe this water body has the imaginative
name of Sand Lake #2.

In fact, walk the shores long enough and you'll find the remains of impromptu campsites... there was once an official hike-in site on one of the lakes, but no more. So much for pathos!

The trails occasionally run on old firebreaks and forest roads, so most are pretty wide, well-worn and in places, straight shots. A few meander or take you on winding, narrow paths through the pines and poplar. And of course, there's a little piece of the North Country Trail cutting through.

I had a blast checking out all the little lakes. One had a spot where people had been digging at the clay bottom, and a short ways away someone had dragged some downed trees to form benches around an old fire pit. I went off-trail around the shore of another and took in the fall colors.

It's gentle enough terrain, and you could do a short loop or stay at Guernsey Lake State Forest Campground, do the whole six miles and have plenty of time to goof off in the woods and water after.

This was another spot on my six-new-hikes-in-six-days jam I went on in October. Honestly, now that I look back at the pictures, the cloudy weather makes it look way more drab than it was.

Saw these boids on the way.

There's ferns and witch hazel everywhere, and the soil looks like the right stuff for the place to be covered with wild blueberries in season. There's nothing that makes an August morning like heading out from camp and picking a cupful of those to go with your breakfast.

Fun postscript: (6/24/19) I recently came across a picture of my family taken prior to my birth at what I'm 98 percent certain to be Sand Lakes. It's one of the weird connections I've found with this place since moving here, like coincidentally buying my dad's old copy of Tubular Bells.