Outdoors · Summit

Summit, MI parks, trails & bike paths

About 5.6% of Summit is conserved land, roughly 1,080 acres. There are about 9.6 miles of mapped trails, and the biggest networks are in Dahlem Environmental Education Center (6.1 mi) and Sparks Foundation County Park (0.6 mi).

Conserved land, trails, parks and bike routes in Summit, measured from OpenStreetMap and USGS data.

At a glance

Summit outdoors

Conserved land
5.6%
1,080 of 19,132 acres
Trails
9.6 mi
0.3 mi per sq mi · 5 on conserved land
Parks & preserves
6
47 conserved acres per 1,000 residents
Bike routes
10.7 mi
4.7 mi lanes · 6.0 mi off-road paths

Conserved land is a share of the whole town area. Bike lanes are often missing from the map in smaller towns, so that number is likely low.

Map

Conserved land, trails & bike routes

1234
Tap a number or a place below to zoom in© OpenStreetMap contributors · USGS PAD-US
Places to walk

Parks & preserves with trails

Ranked by mapped trail miles. Directions go to the nearest marked trailhead or public parking.
1

Dahlem Environmental Education Center

Nature preserve
286 acres6.1 mi of trail
Woodland TrailGrassland TrailNature for All TrailButterfly TrailEcology Farm Trail
No dogsMapped in OpenStreetMap
DirectionsTo Dahlem Center
2

Sparks Foundation County Park

Park
80 acres0.6 mi of trail
Dog rules not recorded
DirectionsTo the parking lot
3

Ella Sharp Park

Managed by City of Jackson
14 acres0.4 mi of trail
East RiverTrail #3
Dog rules not recorded
No trailhead mapped yet Website
4

Vandercook Lake County Park

Park
22 acres
Dog rules not recorded
DirectionsTo the parking lot
Who protects the land

1,080 conserved acres

Who manages it, from PAD-US. Approximate, because parcels can overlap.
Private owners
516 ac
County
329 ac
Town or city
232 ac
Other state land
2 ac

Conserved doesn't always mean open to visitors. 3 acres are conservation easements, which are usually private land. The places listed above are parks and preserves people visit.

Biking & sports

Bike routes, courts & fields

  • Painted or protected bike lanes4.7 mi
  • Off-road bike paths6.0 mi
  • Shoulders & shared lanes0.0 mi

Courts & fields

  • Tennis24
  • Baseball11
  • Pickleball2
  • Soccer2
  • Football2
  • Basketball2

Counts include school and college facilities, which aren't always open to the public.

Nearby

Summit and its neighbors

Towns whose outdoors data has been built so far.
TownConservedTrailsParks & preserves
Summit5.6%9.6 mi6
Jackson10.2%15.6 mi20
Spring Arbor2.5%2.3 mi3
Blackman1.2%4.7 mi2
Liberty4.1%9.5 mi7
Napoleon6%1.4 mi2
Leoni10.7%7.2 mi5
Trail talk

Conditions & tips from neighbors

No recent posts about Summit's trails yet. Muddy, icy, a bridge out, where to park: a quick post helps the next person.

Sources: trails, parks, preserves, courts and bike lanes © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), map data as of 2026-09-28. Conserved land: USGS Gap Analysis Project, Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US). Measured against the Census town boundary.

How we measure"Trails" are OpenStreetMap paths, bridleways, public tracks and unpaved footways, plus footways inside a park or preserve or on a named trail route. Sidewalks are left out. Areas are counted on a 20-meter grid, so overlapping parcels count once. "Conserved" includes conservation easements, which protect land from development but are usually private property. Trailheads are the nearest marked trailhead, public parking lot or information board within about 150 meters of a preserve. Dog rules come from OpenStreetMap when someone has tagged them; otherwise we show what's typical for the land manager, or say the rules aren't recorded.

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Summit

Michigan · MI · Jackson County
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Boundary source: https://tigerweb.geo.census.gov/arcgis/rest/services/TIGERweb/Places_CouSub_ConCity_SubMCD/MapServer/15 · 2025-01-01