The Europe Bay/Hotz loop hike is an easy ramble through woods and along the Lake Michigan and Europe lake shoreline. It’s near the northern tip of the Door County peninsula.
This is the last hike we did in Door County. We’d been trying to figure out through online research and Google Maps whether we could cut some hiking time by parking at the end of the road by the trailhead. There was in fact parking at the end of the road, though no signage for the trail itself. We did find signs for parking for the hike-in sites, so we were good.
Once on the trails signage was clear. We walked the Europe Bay trail first along Lake Michigan and returned along Europe Lake. A nice walk through the woods, for the most part, with some peeks at Lake Michigan and Europe Lake.
The trail nearest Europe Lake was the hilliest part of the hike, but still not challenging. We saw lots of squirrels and snakes. There were a few hike-in sites along the trail. We checked out one that was unoccupied. It was pretty nice, with a firepit, benches, a storage box, and even a shielded pit toilet, very close the Europe Lake. There was also access to a nice beach on Lake Michigan too. This would be a good place to hike in for seclusion without a huge effort. The trails were well enough maintained that you could probably pull a small wagon back in. You wouldn’t need to pack all your gear in and out.
