The Hiker T. Moose 5K Trail is posted on the west side of the park road just after you enter from east Holly Road. It stays in the thin strip of woods along the park border, skirts the maintenance barn and merges into the Wetland Edge Trail within at Mile 0.3. To skip this portion, park at the Holly Nature Center where the Wetlands Edge Trail is posted on the north side of the building.

The Wetland Edge Trail is a 0.25-mile loop that indeed skirts a small wooded wetland in the beginning and then a spur to a Swamp Overlook. Just before returning to the nature center you pass a junction that is posted as “Shiawassee Overlook Trail” with the foot path heading east (right). Follow that and within 200 yards you’ll pass another junction where the Hiker T. Moose Trail splits off to head north as the segment known as Softball Hill Trail.

The Shiawassee Overlook Trail swings south here and soon becomes a dry route between two vast wetlands, impressive scenery if the bugs aren’t overwhelming you in June or July. Within 0.6 miles the trail swings west, uses a foot bridge to cross a stream and comes to a posted junction with the Shiawassee Loop. If you head north (right) you soon come to the posted junction with the Little Bluestem Trail and then pass a sign for 1.5 kilometers before swinging south to hike the backside of the loop. Before returning to the Shiawassee Loop you hike underneath a power line for the third time, amazingly it’s the only man-made intrusion seen after leaving the nature center.

Within a mile of the center you arrive at the short spur to the Charles Harding Mott II Shiawassee River Overlook. It’s a long name for an observation deck but this one seems worth it. The deck allows you gaze over an extensive sea of cattails and wetlands that makes up the headwaters fen. In the middle of it, like winding ribbon, is the Shiawassee River while all around you is nature, pure and simple. You’re on the edge of Holly, yet you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere.

Within a few minutes after leaving the overlook you’re back at the Shiawassee Loop junction with the foot bridge just to the east. A sign reminds those who want to cover 5 kilometers that they need to follow the loop a second time. The rest of us can backtrack the earlier segment At Mile 1.5 you return to the junction with Softball Hill Trail, where the Hiker T. Moose Trail heads north to climb the the ridge and then skirt the two fields. It finishes up by swinging through the picnic area and then backtracking first half kilometer segment to the trailhead.

If you’re parked at the nature center head west (left) instead and within minutes you’ll be at your car amazed at the terrain you just hiked through.