First hike into Area 3, Bayard Conservation Area

I did some car recon yesterday to try to nail down the hunting dates to see if areas 2, 3 and 4 of Bayard Conservation Area were hikable. I found a parking area that had the dates posted, and it's clear until March 17 (Turkey season, evidently.)

I was also able to drive quite far into the conservation land without a gate and with nicely graded dirt road. I followed Bayard Point Road (aka Bayard Road) into the CA until I came to the southbound trail out of area 1 into area 2. It turned out I was only 8/10 of a mile from the Legacy Part Deux geocache which is darn close to the bathroom and education center in Area 1 that I have been to 4 or 5 times. So, about 2 miles hike from the eastern gate on SR16 near the Shands Bridge to there.

Today (see track, above) I returned and was ready to put some boot on the ground. I entered Area 3 on CR 226 (just south of J.P. Hall Road.) It has a big parking area and just inside the gate is the check station for all hunting inside BCA. It's a screened shack with a locked shed attached and the shack was open. I saw a whiteboard within that noted there were only 5 deer taken during the fall hunting season. I would have guessed the number would be higher. I took a WMA pamphlet, which is different than the public access pamphlet, and hiked into the area.

I immediately had to jump over a stream. We had 4 inches of rain last Thursday so I wonder if the stream becomes a creek in wetter months or if I saw it at a pretty normal level. Walking further in, the roads were well kept and there was no sign of the equine. These roads will make a great place for my bike. I marked a waypoint as a Bike Trail on my GPSr.

I saw quite a few small trails leading into the woods and wondered the rest of the day if those were made by animals or men. I overheard someone say that deer make their own trails through the woods, and the other deer follow them. Seems to me that would create a predictable place for predators to look for venison, but I think deer are pretty high up on the food chain in those woods. I like to think so, anyway, since while it would be interesting to run into a bear, I'd much rather not.

I hiked out to another parking area, then back on a different trail than I came on. I saw some birds, none of which I knew the name of. I'll work on bringing my Audubon Guide to Florida more often. I was a little surprised to not see any snakes sunning themselves. I am guessing I haven't seen much in the form of animals since I am, as a human hiker, noisy. I don't know, though. Seems like I should have seen a deer or turkey. I do see a lot of armadillo holes.

I'll bring my bike out here next time.

Night Hiking at Bayard Conservation Area Part Deux

I found Bayard Conservation Area (PHOTO) (BCA) thanks to geocaching. It's 10,000 acres along the west bank of the St Johns river in Clay County that has been set aside for reclamation. Reclamation from what? Pine tree farming. Not the Christmas tree kind, but the kind used for commercial paper. They reclaim it by thinning the tree density to a more natural level (natural? Wouldn't there be 300 year old Live Oaks if it were?) They also use prescribed burning to control the underbrush.

Until the purchase by the St. Johns River Water Management District the land had been managed for perhaps 60 or 70 years to grow the highest density of pines possible that are harvested every few decades.

The conservation area has fire roads running through it, some public education stations, two primitive camping areas, marked trails and some unmarked trails. There is one observation tower that isn't tall enough to observe much, but is a nice short hike from the parking area and has more than a few paper wasps and mud daubers living in it. (Just like my house if I didn't knock them down every single weekend in the summer.)

The story begins...and since this is about Part Deux of my night hiking there, I'll not go into Part Un until a later post. (Order, yet out of order.)

Since geocaching was born of the internet, everyone that plays the game uses handles. My handle is The AIIM Team, which is just the first four letters of the names of my wife and kids. I used to be "The I" but we had a daughter with an I first name, so I just gave up and go by Ivan. I always thought nicknames were given to you by other people, so it's hard for me to think one up for myself.

I went to BCA with my buddy Zephyrus (see what I am saying, handles) to do some cache maintenance on one of his caches. It would also be a find for me. It was to be a 3 mile round trip over fairly well groomed dirt roads starting just before sunset. It was about 50 degrees, clear with a strong moon and little wind. I knew where we were heading since I have biked and hiked out there before. Camping area 5. Riverfront. My last visit was on my trusty mountain bike. I was pretty sure I heard a wild boar rustling in the woods behind the campsite that time, but that's another tale.

The interesting thing about night hiking when you haven't done it but once or twice in your adult life is that it's easy to be spooked by noises. I know that they hunt wild pig, deer, turkey on the on the huntable portions of the BCA. I have seen raccoon, a fox, squirrels and various scat. And I have been told there are bears in the area, too. Neither Zephyrus nor I have any weapons except a 3" knife. I have a walking stick, the aluminum-ish kind. I'm not worried about running into anything harmful, except perhaps that boar, but I also know that I haven't hiked in the BCA at night near the river. The river is where animals drink water.

Luckily for me Zephyrus likes to talk as much as I do and between us there is hardly any silence. I carry a medium-sized Camelback backpack but Z, he carries a plastic grocery bag with his stuff in it. Plastic grocery bags, for all of the beauty assigned to them in the movie American Beauty make a lot of noise. So between the talking and the grocery bags and my 2-C Mag-Lite with 3-watt LCD conversion and his camping flashlight and Coleman electric lantern, I doubt any humans want to bother us let alone wild animals.

But there is still something about knowing that you are the only 2 people for a mile or two that is creepy. And it took a good while for my ears to distinguish the difference between crinkling grocery bags and a bear walking into the road through the saw palmettos. Thank goodness we were lit up like a small yacht in a boat parade.

The weather stayed clear and the hike was invigorating. I was a little underdressed for a Florida boy, just a henley shirt and a North Face vest jacket, like people use for skiing, I think. I wouldn't know.

The distinctive thing about this hike was that it was fairly routine. I was looking over my shoulder at times, but it was just good exercise.

I expected the tension of my previous night hike, the previous Monday. It was my first night hike since I was in college. It was raining and about 55 degrees. I just met Z that night. I had a weak flashlight and he cut out for home after the first leg of a two leg hike that night. I understood, early work schedule and all. So I ended up doing a cache that is pretty famous around here and distinctive since you don't use your GPS at all. You follow reflective tacks in the trees to the destination and then a reflective sign indicates the cache location. The tacks are few and far between.

I completed that cache. It was my highest difficulty yet of 72 finds and about 90 attempts. But I had some fear in me while doing it, alone, in the rain, to an area of the BCA I had never been. That was thrilling.

I have been to both campsites, the observation tower, the raccoon amphitheater (education area under a big oak), and a few other places.

If you would like to visit Bayard Conservation Area, you are welcome to bike, hike, ride a horse, bring a leashed dog or canoe and kayak. I think you'll be portaging your boat about a mile, though. It's just east of Green Cove Springs and west of the Shands bridge between St. Johns and Clay counties over the St. Johns river.

Pushing Myself Outdoors

I created this blog to keep a record of my attempts to enjoy the outdoors again. There may be useful information in this blog, but probably only to people with similarities to me and my hobbies.

I call it Pushing Myself Outdoors because I am doing just that. I enjoy being outdoors, but not playing organized sports. I enjoy exploring, setting goals and reaching them or just pushing myself to a physical limit to feel a sense of accomplishment. Hiking, biking and geocaching are means to that end.

I also enjoy television and the internet and eating. Mostly eating as an adjunct to those things. I find I can't eat while I am biking, hiking and geocaching. But, this is not a blog about my diet. I am not Pushing Myself Outdoors to lose weight, although that has happened some. I am doing it to keep a sense of wonder and excitement in my suburban life.

I won't tell you much about me as statistics. I will let you find those things out as I post.

I started to rediscover my sense of wonder when I started teaching my children about astronomy. I know only the most basic things, I assure you. But out here in the bedroom community it's still pretty dark on a clear night and we can watch stars. They are small (children, not stars, stars are big) so their attention spans are not long. Which is great, since it gives me the chance to learn as I go.

I was inspired by the scenes in the movie "Contact" when Ellie and her father would watch the skies and talk on the HAM Radio. It seemed like such an incredible connection between father and daughter and it has gestated as such for us. Now if I can get around the homeowner's association restrictions to put up that HAM Radio antenna!

If anyone finds this, thank you for reading.