I had an email exchange with the park superintendent recently. He indicated the chunk of land along the river labeled private was leased by the tree farm but they have since gone out of business so it is no longer private. He also said the state just last month purchased the tree farm to the east of markers 34 and 35 so it is now part of the forest.
Wilma and I have not hiked here before. We came on a scouting trip once before, and tried to hike here a few weeks ago, but it was closed for deer hunting that day.
It was a nice hike. The trails are well marked and the trail map is pretty good. The trails even have trail maps posted at most intersections. There are numbered posts along the way that correspond to numbers on the map. I think only one of the numbered signs was missing.
Parts of it are a little hilly. The web site calls it gently rolling hills. Probably not the worst description. Some of the trails we were on were actually gravel roads. The trail map does not distinguish between gravel roads and dirt trails.
We did not seen any critters other than birds and squirrels. Lots of birds and squirrels. There is a nature trail called Logger's Trail that starts and ends at parking lot 1. Kind of a typical children's nature trail. I did not know it was there. I took a look and it is briefly mentioned on the web site.
There were porta-potties in the parking areas I looked at (1,2,3, and horse parking), along with trash cans in most of them. I did not see a trash can at lot 1. I recall seeing a water spigot at the horse parking area. I did not check to see if it was on. Horse trails closed November 15, so it might well have been off. There were 5 benches on the nature trail at what looked like a gathering area. The only picnic tables I saw were at the horse parking area.
Wilma was able to get to the river for a drink in one spot, and was also able to get to what my GPS map shows as an intermittent creek. The creek was about 12" wide but did have water flowing through it.
The trails seemed well maintained. I only saw one tree that was down across a trail, and it was a smallish one so I just moved it off the trail. I also flipped a fair number of smaller branches off the trail with my hiking stick, as I usually do. There was one bigger tree that was down, but it had purple streamers tied to it, so maybe it was intended that way. There was a sign banning horses on that trail. Maybe they left it there on purpose.
We ran across a dog and his human out running as we were about to get back to the car. The dog was a poodle named Betty. She and Wilma wanted to roughhouse. I think Wilma was a little jealous that Betty was not on a leash. Did not see anyone else in the forest.
Each of the three regular parking lots had a place for hunters to sign in. They all had copies of the park hunting regulations and park maps as well. At parking lot one there was a box with some booklets about the nature walk.
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