All the years living no more than forty-five minutes from Wakeley Lake, I never hiked the trails, but do remember walking once to the lake, and fished on an intertube. While on vacation in my hometown of Mio, Michigan, I took the 20-minute drive West on M-72 from where I was lodging and hikes for two and a half hours (approximately 5- miles).
Wakeley Lake land area is 2100 acres and is considered moderate in size. I'm not sure the size of the lake, but it was larger than I had remembered. If I hadn't had some commitments later on in the day, I would have hike most all the trails, but on this day I hiked from the trailhead to intersection 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, then back to 4, 3,2, then out.
Gypsy and I started off going down the Beaver Pond Loop.
Much of the Wakeley Lake Trails looked like this- a narrow footpath through a typical Michigan mix forest overgrown with Bracken ferns.
One of the larger beaver ponds that I had passed by loaded with Lillypads.
Ant mound.
Intersection 6 the post is leaning up against tree and map is missing. I got my first glimpse of the lake.
If it has been rainy, between intersection 6 and 4, there is no way in which your feet are going to stay dry. The trail goes between two swampy bodies of water on a somewhat elevated portion of land. I thought maybe walking on the edge where you see the grass would have been dry but still had to slush through several inches a muke and water.
Wakeley Lake.
The lake access and campsite 1 (5 campsites total) are only approximately quarter miles from the trailhead.
