A new page!

I started a new page this weekend - a purely arbitrary milestone, but I take what I can get to keep my spirits up. This is actually the third page of map. Since the base map is at a large scale each page doesn't cover much territory - still it's great to start a new page. That also means I have a lot of drafting to do with the just-retired page.

I finished the ld page in 4.5 hours on Saturday. Last weekend I had found an aluminum tree stand. I have found lots of tree stands, but they are all wooden and in danger of falling at any minute. This one was different, a modern aluminum stand padlocked to a tree. Not sure how long it had been there, since hunting season is long over. Or maybe it's for this fall? Anyway, it's illegal now that the area is a State Park, so I notified my contact with the DNR and he asked me to send him the GPS coordinates. I drifted by there on Saturday and it was gone! How odd. Anyway, the DNR still wants to know where it was so they can check on the area later.

I finally mapped the old house - I'm pretty sure that the cabin in the pines was a sharecrop cabin for this house. It has not survived - it's a total ruin, except for the well house right next to it.

Sunday I started a new area. My first deliverable for the orienteering club is the area north of the big powerline and as far west as the southwest bend in the big powerline. Rather than map up into the bend of the river now I decided to finish the area west of the big inholding. Followed the boundary south for 900 meters to the powerline, then west on the powerline. Found a logging road that I hoped would serve as a western boundary, but it ended up making an S curve through the new area. I predict that I will spend hours walking this road to get access to the area to map it. I am moving farther and farther away from the parking spot.

Found the first beaver dam - the area behind it is 250 meters wide and 900 meters long. I hope it's not all flooded. Also found the largest Beech tree I have ever found while mapping, and I have seen some big trees. It is in a sheltered spot almost on the bank of the river.