Today, we hiked from Sugar River Alder FP with a brief excursion into Avon Bottoms, a WIDNR property across the state line. It was a nice hike. Lots of water. We flushed a turkey, just about scared the crap out of me when it took off about 10 feet directly behind me.
We did get to explore a little north of the ox bow pond shown on the preserve map, and the NW corner of the preserve.
I had hoped that it would be possible to get farther north in the bottoms, but there is a channel of water that is 10-20 feet wide north of the state line that stretches from the Sugar River on the west all the way to the east edge of the WIDNR property and connects to the ox bow pond, and then back to the state line. The channel starts about 400 yards north of the border at the river and heads generally SE.
Our first attempt to cross into WI was at the SE corner of the WIDNR land. There is a 5 or 6 foot high perm going north along the east edge between the ox bow pond and a channel of water to the east that is next to a corn field. I am guessing the channel to the east and corn field are private. Hard to tell about the berm although being as there are two old electric fences on the west side of the berm, my guess is maybe the berm is private as well. In any case, the berm is overgrown with brambles and not really passable without a machete.
I managed to get around the ox bow pond by heading west but discovered the channel that blocked me from going farther north of the state line. The GPS trek appears to show I never got more than about 1000 ft into WI, and that was over along the river.
I sort of thought I could see it in the satellite images from google, but where I thought I saw it on the image was farther to the south. As you can see from the GPS trek, we just sort of meandered around in there. It is not real hard to get around, but since you can't go more then short distances in a straight line and there really are few landmarks it is easy to get turned around. I had a satellite image, map, and a GPS, but none showed the water feature that blocked me.
The GPS was the only way I could really tell I had crossed into WI. I encountered no one wearing cheese on their head. The ox bow pond and the Sugar River are the only things you can use to navigate in there, and the ox bow pond is not on my GPS map. It appears to me that the ox bow pond shown on the preserve map may actually be slightly farther north than the preserve map depicts.
I managed to get three deer ticks on my chest. As best I can tell Wilma escaped without any ticks, although they are small enough that I could have missed them when I checked her. We had fun. 5.6 miles according to GPS. Took 5 hours and 20 minutes. Very slow going in there.
I got some guidance from a fellow at the WIDNR. I contacted him via their website.
There is a lot of this up there.
Interesting fungi all over the place.
Wilma in her safety vest (it is gun deer season in WI).
A hunter we saw from the preserve side sitting in a tree stand across the state line, maybe 20 feet away.
A nicer map of the preserve is posted at various spots along the trail than what can be downloaded.
Some interesting bits in the video.
10:50 Wilma and I scare up a turkey.
12:55 Wilma goes in a hollow tree.
13:05 we find the remnents of a deer camp(?).
ETA: I was even able to use my GPS I got for Xmas last year for more than keeping track of where I went for after I get back. I must admit I did most of my navigating using the sun ,the zipper pull compass I bought last week, and a forest preserve map I printed off their web site. Hard to get lost in the small area I had to work with, and I really have not come to terms with the GPS yet in lieu of a map and compass. Although up there it was kind of handy since I was often not real sure where I was with any great degree of certainty as far as what state I was in.
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