Bruce Tanner Trails at Tompkins Center Historical Society, Rives Junction, Michigan

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
8/10/2026	3 miles	1 hour 19 minutes	87'	2.4 mph	220.8

Parking: 

• Dirt parking lot in entrance next to the museum (museum address is 10138 Tompkins Road, Rives Junction, MI)

Map:

• tompkinscenterhistorical.org 
• I don't think the trails show up in the Gaia GPS app
• See map on sign photo

Directions:

• Green and red trail loops

In this part of Michigan, most people go hiking at the Pinckney Waterloo Recreation Area. We've hiked there before and I just remember it as being hot, humid, buggy, and overgrown in the summer. This year, I decided to look around for other areas to hike. After doing some research, this place came up on my list. This set of trails is on the Stewart Farm, which also houses historical farm buildings. We did see what we think are soybeans growing in the fields. The hike is on grassy, gravel, and dirt paths. It was hot and humid, but the bugs fortunately weren't too bad. There was occasional signage on the trail. Having a copy of the online map to get started, and then a photo of a map from one of their trail signs was helpful.

This map looks different than the online map. We used this one for navigating
However, doing the green and red trails, we still only came up with a 3 mile hike.

Typical trail

Radio controlled plane runway

Grandview Rim Trail, New River Gorge National Park, West Virginia

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
8/6/2026	2.8 miles	1 hour 46 minutes	186'	1.8 mph	217.8

Parking: 

• North Overlook, Grandview Rim area

Map:

• Gaia GPS app
• Grandview Trail map (available at Grandview Visitor Center)

Directions:

• Take the trail from the parking lot to the North Overlook. Turn left onto the Grandview Rim Trail. Hike to the Turkey Spur Overlook Parking lot. Continue up stone then wood steps up to Turkey Spur Overlook. Return the same way.

We stopped at New River Gorge National Park on the way to Cleveland, Ohio. We also visited this park last year and enjoyed it so much that we decided to stop by again. This time we visited a different section of the park - the Grandview area. We stopped at the visitor center and picked up a map of the trails in the Grandview section of the park. We drove to the North Overlook, but actually we should have just started our hike right from the visitor center parking lot. It was a hot muggy day. At the North Overlook, there's a beautiful view down to the river. Then you hike along the rim (too far from the edge for a view), next to a road as well. There are barely any cars on the road, so it's not so bad to be hiking near it. The climb up to Turkey Spur Overlook leads you to more views of the river. A nice hike, and I expect we'll be visiting this park again.

Trailhead

North Rim Overlook

Climb to Turkey Spur Overlook

Bull Creek Preserve, Swannanoa

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
8/4/2026	3.2 miles	1 hour 51 minutes	142'	2.1 mph	215

Parking: 

• Riceville Road, across the street from Berea Baptist Church

Map:

• Gaia GPS app

Directions:

• Misc trails

Steamy day at Bull Creek Preserve. We came across a jogger who ran into a bear along the trail, but we didn't see it. We knew there was a chance of rain, so we did our route in reverse, making it easier to take a shortcut back to the car if needed. It started sprinkling just as we got to Krumm's swim hole. We still let him swim of course. It started thundering near the end of our hike, so we did take a bit of a shortcut back to the parking lot.

Bull Creek Preserve, Swannanoa

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
7/31/2026	3.0 miles	1 hour 48 minutes	192'	2.1 mph	211.8

Parking: 

• Riceville Road, across the street from Berea Baptist Church

Map:

• Gaia GPS app

Directions:

• Misc trails

Steamy day at Bull Creek Preserve. Lately the trails have become quite overgrown. We are skipping one section of our normal route due to a ground nest. There were already people hanging out at our 2 normal swimming spots, so we ended up at a shallow spot on the creek.

Grassy Creek Falls, Dupont State Recreational Forest

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
7/29/2026	3.9 miles	2 hours 1 minute	372'	2.2 mph	208.8

Parking: 

• Lake Imaging access area

Map:

• Gaia GPS app
• Pisgah Map Co. Dupont

Directions:

• Take Lake Imaging Road from the parking lot. Turn right onto Hilltop Trail. Turn right onto Grassy Creek Falls Trail (no sign). Hike down to the waterfall. Turn around and stay on Grassy Creek Falls Trail, passing the Hilltop Trail on the left. Turn left onto Lake Imaging Road and return to the parking lot.

A hot day in Dupont. We've never hiked the Hilltop Trail or visited Grassy Creek Falls, so that was our goal. Lake Imaging Trail is actually one of my least favorite trails (despite having a lake) at Dupont due to the high concentration of mountain bikers. It was a weekday which helps - we only saw a dozen today. We didn't see any mountain bikers on the Hilltop Trail or Grassy Creek Falls Trail. Many of the waterfalls at Dupont are crowded, but this one had no people. That said, there isn't a large access area for it. We hiked to the bottom of the falls, but there really wasn't a good area for swimming unfortunately, so we just hiked back up. 

The bottom of the falls

One of two lookouts