Barton Nature Area — Attraction in Ann Arbor

Nice nature trail...Peaceful and isolated , at least near dusk on a Sunday evening .Just low-key enough to keep away the masses & not have the feeling of a well-trod, public park. The quiet beauty of flowers and greenery, the sound of the birds and only occasional outside reminders of civilization , mainly some nice foot bridges, and occasionally parallel railroad bed, highway sounds what looks like an old reservoir /water works and a handful of well-placed park benches .

There was in my sampling no especially spectacular views but it's the aura and feel of the place that makes for an attractive respite . Pluses: The appearance of fireflies as the summer sun went down and the relative lack of bugs in the woods along the trail. However as you go down by the reservoir area it did become very buggy and this seemed good place to turn around anyway with approaching darkness. This makes for a refreshing walk or walk and a bit understated but that's part of it's charm. I don't think women would feel especially comfortable running out here by themselves but it makes a good place to go with a partner with only occasional people...

I know nothing about this place. It's been under construction since I learned about it. But it lead me a little down the road to where I now drop in my kayak nearly weekly. This section of the huron river is fantastic. You can skip frogs in the pads and land bass no problem. Drop a treble and boom... Nice eatin sunfish of many variety. Down further past a few bridges there's quite a few smallmouth bass and some pike. Wonderful time every time. Even if you don't fish... The views are fantastic. All the turtles, egrets and herons... There's a swan family nested down at a bridge. We like to just anchor under bridge for a beer n bass catch every time we're out there lol just an inside thing. But even though my review isn't about Barton, it's what I went to first when planning to get on the water, but couldn't. So I thank Barton greatly for leading me to one of my favorite tracks of the huron river yet and I've done a lot of it....

It's quite a lovely spot to enjoy nature. We went up to see the 20-30 or so Loons that had been reported there. They are stopping over on their migration, so it's always a treat to spot them. Though, normally, we see a couple at a time. We had also heard there were Horned Grebes spotted as well. We were treated with finding two when we went to the dam-side of the pond. They briefly showed some courtship behavior, which was an awesome treat. If only we would have had a video going through a scope, it would have been a fun capture of a...