Highbanks Trail in Oscoda, MI - My Actifit Report Card: September 27 2025

Hey Actifitters,

If some of you were starting to think we always do the same activities, you'd be kind of right... But yesterday we had a great day trip planned to Oscoda, Michigan. It's on the East side of Michigan along Lake Huron. This has almost become a yearly tradition: we try going there late September or early October to enjoy the beautiful foliage fall colors. We knew that the warm weather the past few weeks delayed the colors and we were still far from peak color, unfortunately this was the only week end we could go. Anyways, we started early (for us) from here and the plan was once again to get to Oscoda Beach Park for lunch. Some years, we're very organized and bring our own sandwiches and stuff, some others like this one, we just pick up food somewhere just before getting there. This is a very small park, but the sandy beach is beautiful. As expected at this time of the year, it's almost empty. But with the surprising current warm temperatures, it's the first year we actually saw people swimming.

This is really just a pit stop, because the idea is always to hike a few miles on the Highbanks trail along the AuSable River, just a few minutes drive West of there, and in the Huron National Forest. There are many great places to start such a hike, but we like to start from the Lumberman's Monument. It's around the middle of the best parts of the trail and if you have time, you can hike in both directions. With two cars would be much easier and shorter of course, just one way. As soon as you get to the Monument, the beautiful scenery starts!

Like I mentioned, one of the main goals is the fall colors, they were obviously nowhere near peak, but we could find some orange and yellow here and there.

From there, we took the short trail to the sand dunes. It's a nice and easy way to start and offers even nicer views on the river.

I'll use this 'island' for #Aroundtheworld contest this week. Technically, it's a view from the Highbanks Trail, not the trail itself, but that's how I'll describe it anyways:

Like I mentioned, for late September in Michigan, it was quite hot, in the high 70s F (around 25C), and we were surprised again to see people climbing down the dunes for a dip in the water. Kaia would have been down with that plan, but we really weren't prepared for it.

So we made our way back onto the actual Highbanks Trail, with a more foresty look.

We went there several times, so I'm not sure how it happened, but even under the confident leadership of Kaia, we got turned around a couple times.

Not to worry, we quickly found our way back onto the main trail. Again very little color on the trees, but the brown and yellow colors of the ferns and vegetation on the ground were beautiful too.

After we turned around at the end of the trail (unless you want to keep walking along the road), the sun was even more scorching.

Not Kaia's favorite (or ours), so we gave her plenty of breaks with water. By the way, with her injured leg, she was a trooper, always leading the way on the trail.

And we made it back to the main trailhead and to the Monument.

Like I mentioned, from there you can hike in the other direction, heading to Iargo Springs. But Kaia seemed quite tired, even if it was only about 6 miles (10km) and we also didn't want to drive back too late. So we went to the loggers floating kitchen instead. From the Monument, it's 262 stairs down to reach it (in case you're wondering, we didn't count them, I just looked it up) and it offers different views of the river and one of the dunes from earlier.

Even Kaia seemed lost in the beauty of the reflections.

With the algae and the bright sun, some neon green could be seen in the water. Weird and maybe gross...

One more view and we went back up the stairs. We would probably never admit it, but we were grateful for Kaia taking a few breaks on some of the landings, clever girl!

After that, a lot more hiking is possible. Or another option is to drive between the various viewpoints, as many are accessible with very short walks from the parking lots along the AuSable river. But again, we didn't want to leave too late and we got started on the almost 3hour drive back. We finished this active day with a tasty BBQ, possibly one of the last this season. Even if we didn't see much of the fall colors, this was a really great day, and as a bonus the bar in #poprzeczka competition is cleared, yay!
As always, thanks for stopping by and see you tomorrow.

[//]:# (!pinmapple 44.43552 lat -83.62363 long d3scr)
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Daily Activity, Hiking, Walking