Orchard Lake Nature Sanctuary

Little gem of a park. Great way to burn some extra time while waiting for my son's appts. Nothing crazy just some trails with a nice view ud83dudc4d

Overall it was a great view of the wilderness and was lucky enough to see a big bird when I was there. The problem was I thought there could have been more clear guidance on the park rules on what you can do and what you can not do. When you start to walk the trail one of the signs are no lake access but there a fishing dock and even people talk about the fishing dock in the reviews on here, so if you can fish in the fishing dock you are then using Lake access. There is like a barbed wiring fence that covers the steep hills down to the lake but then there are a lot of places where there are no barbed wiring fence so if no access to the lake is allowed anyone can freely go down with a fishing pole and fish. There should be more guidance and specification on where you can access the lake for fishing and which areas you can't. If the only fishing spot allowed is by the fishing dock all that area should be constantly covered with fencing and signs of no fishing no lake access so no one has any problems with anyone and then no one will have to deal with trouble. I also wanted to mention about the dock and that is such an awful little dock that doesn't even reach the water and it would had been nice had it actually been more towards in the water. I saw the signs on the dock saying no swimming or diving like someone is going to try swimmimg when it doesn't even touch touch the water. Plus as shallow as that area is you would think it would be nice to make the dock a little bit longer. I don't know if that dock is not in the water due to the Corona situation this year, but all the other parks state metro and city public parks have their docks in the water, so not sure why this park does not have their dock in. I just think that is so terrible for a park as much land as they have by the water and don't even give their tourists visitors water lake access. I can understand that not every area can be a beach but there is plenty of lakeside land to offer picnic and fishing areas. If it is just a sanctuary wildlife park either do one of the other, give specific guidelines for your guest This park wasn't the best just average. I would not visit the park again unless they make some improvements.

Beautiful!nReally, that's it.nIn good weather there are some Geocaches if you like treasure hunting.

I always end up bringing a bag with me to pick up any garbage I find. It's very sad to see so much on the ground. The problem areas are by the parking lot and by the lake. It's a beautiful place to walk. So if everyone picks up after themselves, and helps keep the place clean I would be very happy.

Nice place for a walking or biking trip; West Bloomfield Trial (connecting multiple states for hundreds of miles) is right next to it.