Tubing at Burchfield Park adds color to gray Michigan winter

In Ingham County, snow lovers head for the hills and parks. With the winter’s heaviest snowfall at the end of January, the Burchfield Park sledding hills in Holt called local winter lovers to the outdoors. 

The park offers not just sledding hills, but also fire pits and a concession stand serving hot chocolate, which turn the steep toboggan hill into a snowy playscape.

Katie Gregory, a psychology professor at Michigan State University, took her young daughter Eleanor and some friends tubing on Saturday.

“We come every year. We were here last Sunday after we had gotten the big snow. That was the first time this year because we hadn’t been getting much,” Gregory said.

Eleanor agreed with her mom, saying that coming to Burchfield to tube is her favorite winter activity.

Ingham residents have been enjoying the hills every weekend since the first substantial snow in December. Local to the Holt area, Christine Fisher brought her family to the park this past weekend while the temperature was bearable and there was still snow.

“We’re really lucky that we’re super close and it was such a beautiful day, the first day that it’s actually been relatively warm. It made sense for the kids to get a chance to get out,” Fisher said.

Tubing is one of many cheap winter activities in mid-Michigan. Tube rentals cost $3 an hour, and parking costs $3 at Burchfield for county residents. There are also cross-country skiing trails in Burchfield and Lake Lansing parks with ski rentals, and a tubing hill at Hawk Island Park.

Disc golf is also popular at Burchfield park, even with snow on the ground. 

“People will come out here when it’s 10 degrees, really low temperatures, to come to play disc golf,” said Robert Parks, an employee at the Burchfield tube rental building. “I find that pretty strange. It must be pretty fun if you’re coming out in the snow to do it.”

The tubing hills are the main attraction for families and students alike during the winter. Michigan State student Kyle Heslop came to the park Saturday with a group of friends.

“We got invited out by a few of our other friends to go sledding over here. We went in big clumps, which was really, really fun. I tried to jump from tube to tube, but that was a dumb idea,” Heslop said.

The county has increased its winter offerings 0ver the last decade, and Gregory has enjoyed the evolution since she’s been a resident.

“I think in the last 10 years, the Lansing area has had a lot more going on in terms of what you can do,” Gregory said. “There’s more opportunity.”