Start at the dog park on Fillmore Street on a Saturday morning and you used to have two options: turn around, or get in your car and drive to the other park. For years, Grand Ravines and Grand River Park sat less than two miles apart along the same stretch of water, but nothing on the ground actually linked them. You picked one or the other.
That gap closed. A 1.3-mile stretch of the Idema Explorers Trail now runs along the riverfront between the two parks, crossing Willow Creek and threading past scenic overlooks most Jenison residents have driven past for years without a way to reach on foot. The result isn't a new park. It's an old habit that no longer makes sense: picking a side of the river when you could walk the whole thing.
The Half-Mile That Used to Split Jenison in Two
If you grew up walking the dog park side of Grand Ravines, you know the suspension bridge, the muddy stretch after a hard rain, the wooded loop back to the car. If your routine runs through Grand Ravines North instead, you know the covered bridge, the Lodge, and the newer treehouse overlook that opened in 2023, forty feet up in the canopy with a boardwalk built so anyone can reach it.
What most people didn't have, until the connector segment finished, was a reason to know both. The new stretch links the natural-surface trail out of Grand River Park directly to Grand Ravines, funded through the Ottawa County Parks Millage, the Ottawa County Park Foundation's Grand River Greenway Fund, and Georgetown Township. It added modern restrooms on both ends of the crossing and river views that were previously only visible from a car window on 28th Avenue. Combined, the two parks now offer nine miles of paved and natural trail across 364 acres, all reachable without moving your car.
Here's what that actually looks like at each entrance:
| Entrance | Address | What's there |
|---|---|---|
| Grand River Park | 9473 28th Ave, Jenison | Natural-surface trailhead, direct river access, start line for the annual trail race |
| Grand Ravines South | 3991 Fillmore St, Jenison | 21-acre off-leash dog park, dog wash station, restrooms |
| Grand Ravines North | 9920 42nd Ave, Jenison | Paved trailhead, Grand Ravines Lodge, treehouse overlook, kayak and fishing launch |
You can start at any one of the three and end up somewhere you weren't planning to go.
What the Walk Feels Like
Coming from Grand River Park, the trail is mostly natural surface until you hit the new connector segment, which follows the river toward Grand Ravines. Cross into the park and the old covered bridge appears first, followed by a short incline that opens onto a wide view of the water. Regulars know to look for the bald eagles that nest along this stretch. They fish this section of the Grand River often enough that longtime trail users treat a sighting as expected rather than rare.
Push further and you reach the meadow, then the suspension bridge, a wooden pedestrian crossing built in 2017 that sways slightly underfoot as it spans one of the park's ravines. From there it's a short walk to the dog park on the Fillmore side, or a detour north to the Lodge and the treehouse if you started from the other direction. None of these features are new on their own. What changed is that you no longer have to choose which ones you visit in a given trip.
The Town Already Ran the Whole Thing
Ottawa County Parks and the Ottawa County Parks Foundation didn't wait long to put the connector to use. This June, the Grand Explorers' Trail Race sent runners over the exact route: starting at Grand River Park, following the natural-surface trail to the new connector segment, crossing into Grand Ravines past the covered bridge, and for the 10K, continuing on through the meadow, past the dog park, and across the suspension bridge before looping back through the woods to the start.
It's a small event, built around 10K, 5K, and a kids' one-mile fun run, with dogs welcome on leash for the longer distances. But the framing tells you something: the organizers didn't design a new race and happen to route it through both parks. They built the race specifically to mark that the two parks were finally one connected system, and enough people showed up on a Saturday morning in June to make the point.
Two New Reasons to Stay Out Past the Trailhead
If you finish a walk hungry, there's a new answer as of this month. Taco Veloz opened August 7 at 420 Baldwin Street, in a building that had been dark for nearly two years after Dickey's Barbecue Pit closed in September 2024 when its parent company filed for bankruptcy. The new owners gutted the space and repainted it with murals of hummingbirds and Catrinas as a nod to the family's hometown. Mondays run a $1.99 taco special, which is the kind of detail that tells you they're planning to be a regular stop rather than a one-season concept.
If you'd rather see the same river from the water than from the trail, the Grand Lady has been running out of Steamboat Park Campground on Taylor Street since mid-June, with live music cruises, sightseeing trips, and private charters continuing through most of September. It's a different way to spend an evening on the same stretch of river the trail follows on foot, and the season is far enough along now that a cruise this month means catching one of the last few weekends before it wraps for the year.
What a Jenison Saturday Looks Like Now
None of this required a new park to be built. It required one missing half-mile to get filled in, and once it was, the rest of the pieces started acting like a single system instead of three separate errands. A morning walk from the Fillmore dog park to the covered bridge and back. An afternoon at the treehouse overlook off 42nd Avenue. Tacos on Baldwin Street on the way home. An evening cruise out of Steamboat Park to close the day on the water instead of the trail.
That's the actual shift here. Not a new amenity, but a neighborhood that used to require picking a lane now rewards people who don't. If you've lived in Jenison long enough to have a favorite entrance to Grand Ravines, it might be worth walking the other one this fall, if only to see what was on the far side of that half-mile gap the whole time.
If you're weighing a move to Jenison yourself and want a sense of what daily life looks like beyond the trail system, our Jenison neighborhood guide covers the housing stock, the schools, and the pace of the place in more detail. And if you're a longtime resident who's thought about what your home is worth now that the river corridor has gotten this much more usable, the team at Prichard Properties is always glad to talk through it, no obligation attached.
