Fort Gratiot County Park — Attraction in Fort Gratiot Charter Township

I gave the park an honest review over 2 years ago and it was overall poor for the beach area due to the hazards on the beach and in the water. Someone must not have liked my honest review and flagged it and it was removed. My photos do show the areas on the beach that looked the way it did over the past couple of years.

Today I visited the area again and I was told back in the spring time that they were approved to mitigate the hazards on the beach by both the Michigan DEQ and the Army Corps of Engineers. Working for the Dept. of Defense for 24+ years I know how dealing with Federal Agencies is slow, but some good work was done here. I added new photos to show the work done... good job so far.

The county park has had many truck loads of sand brought in and obvious work done to remove the bluffs, steel rods, rail, metal, and broken concrete from the beach area above the water line. The lake levels are high and the storms exposed these hazards from erosion. One can let their kids play in the sandy areas with out much worry of steel rods poking through the sand now.

As far as swimming safety, I cannot vouch for that yet. "Swim at your own risk" signs now are present in a larger format. There were many steel rods in concrete underwater in the beach area which has caused cuts, pokes, in myself and my kids. I have not swam there in over two years due to these hazards and I do not know if they were removed or mitigated as much as they can be done... lots of junk concrete was dumped here long ago and put these hazards there before the county park took over.

At a future date I will snorkel and see what has been improved there. I support the county parks and their endeavors to open up lands to public use and to maintain them. There has been nice improvement here and that is...

Area is great and always clean and well cared for. Bathrooms are normally clean. I am still disappointed that they are charging to enter on weekends and holidays. Nice walking path with little stops around to read a short child's book. The kids like doing it. There is a decent playground but I wish they had more than one swing for the kids. The beach is nice and clean but it is very rocky! It is always a great place to find stone and a few little fossils if that is what your into. For me, I want to be able to go out into the water without pain. Once you get past all the rocks it is nice and sandy. They do have free feet wash stations which are very useful. The parking situations isn't the greatest. Usually on nice days the spots fill up quick and you have to park in the overflow parking. I do wish we could take the dog with us but understand why not. The kids always have a great time when we go out there. We would go back but there are. Better beaches around but not all of them have the playground and...

Lovely park. A must for Rock collectors/painters! Small beach. Very clean. Nice restrooms. Waterfountains have foot spouts! Rocky bottom. Awesome playground and equipment. Nice walking trail- very short, but you can go around as many times as you want, right? Watch out for poison ivy- there are signs. Show the kidz the snake grass- it was one of my favorite things growing up. Be VERY careful turning onto Metcalf from the main road. Bad accidents there often. Come to a full stop and look all 4 ways! Parents- skipping stones is one thing. Throwing heavy rocks while there are children and adults around is unacceptable. A grampa watched his little throwing bigger and bigger rocks into the lake from the shore. I moved twice and very nicely said "that's unsafe". Just b4 they packed up, gramps decided to throw rocks into the lake himself...bigger ones! I can't really comprehend that and I've got 40 years teaching SpEd under my belt....