Old Growth Forest Pathway

Hartwick Pines protects the largest remaining tract of old-growth white pine forest in Michigan's Lower Peninsula, and the Old Growth Forest Pathway winds through its cathedral heart on a short but profoundly affecting loop. Eastern white pines here reach heights of 150 feet with trunk diameters exceeding four feet, survivors of the great logging era that stripped the surrounding landscape bare between 1870 and 1900. Walking among them produces an unmistakable sense of scale: the canopy is so high and the trunks so widely spaced that the forest floor is open and park-like, carpeted in oxalis, trillium, and Canada mayflower. The Michigan Forest Visitor Center at the trailhead interprets the logging era with authentic reconstructed camp buildings including a bunkhouse, cook shack, and blacksmith shop, complete with period tools. On the trail itself, interpretive plaques identify individual named trees, including the Monarch Pine, long the largest white pine in Michigan until its crown was lost in a 2013 windstorm. The loop passes through a stand of old-growth hemlock near its midpoint before returning through the most impressive pine grove. Early morning visits often reward birdwatchers with pileated woodpeckers, red-breasted nuthatches, and the distinctive ascending spiral song of the Swainson's thrush.