Paw Paw River County Park, September 7

Paw Paw River County Park, September 7, 2025

This was our first visit to the Paw Paw River County Park. It is a short one-mile trail and has limited parking, but 24 hikers and both dogs felt it was worth the visit. The trail tread is compacted stone so it was an easy hike. Pat Fisher, our hike leader, introduced the hike with some park and river history. Because the trails are on an island, the bridge is the trailhead. We stopped on the bridge and looked for signs of the flow control dam that was removed a little over 10 years ago. No visible evidence was found. There were plenty of enormous trees along the trail and an unusual number of sycamores. Even the sassafras trees were some of the largest we’ve seen on our hikes. And yes, there were Paw Paw trees. The trail was wide, which was a good thing since the edges were covered in poison ivy plants. Along the way Pat explained some of the importance of riparian zones for plants and animals. When we reached the eastern end of the trail we stopped and looked for remnants of the diverter dam. Again, no signs were found. We paused our hike here for a while to listen to the water flowing over the rocks and take in the beautiful scenery. On the return section of the hike, we found quite a few rusty remnants from yesteryear, one being some sort of a power transmission pole, unlike any we had seen before. The hike ended up being exactly 1.5 hours. Happy Trails.