Saturday, November 3, 2012

11-3-12 Laona Heights Forest Preserve

We saw a pheasant along Yale Bridge road on our way here. We tend to see a lot of critters out in this neck of the woods. It is pretty much just farms. Lots of open space. We left here and saw two deer (and later a third) along the way on the same road as we went to Jensen Forest Preserve. Wilma and I came here once before planning to hike it, but didn't find the trail. I am not sure how we managed to miss it. There are two trail markers right along the only park road, one at the main gate and one about halfway to the parking area.
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The trail is not real long here. The district web site says half a mile. It is "U" shaped and basically goes along the perimeter of the site. One end being in the far NE corner and one in the far SE corner. The open side of the "U" is the east side of the park. There appears to be no trail through the woods to connect the two end points. We just walked along the road to get between the two points. It appears the total actual trail length is about 0.75 miles end to end.

The part on the north side of the park is beter maintained. Not much in the way of debris on the trail. The part on the south side (in the nature preserve) appears to have very little in the way of trail maintenence other then cutting up big trees that fall on the trail and getting them out of the way. It makes for a much more foresty feel.

While it is a small preserve, and a short hike, it was worth doing.
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Short video.

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