All,
Late last year when I discovered the ruins near Chatsworth in the below photo, I was scouting out the newest PBX hike I was designing for this year.
I submitted all my info and planned waypoints to Bob and on 12/27 Bob sent this edited text to all PBX members.
Risley Branch Hike--A PBX Explore
Boys,
No one can blame you for looking out your window and cursing the rotten exploring weather over the past week. But have good cheer—it will get better!
We are going to hope so, and schedule a trip for Saturday, January 9, 2010. We will meet at 8:45 AM.
The title of this trip is Risley Branch Hike, and it was designed and being led by Guy, our dedicated Pine Barren Brother. This is an extremely wild area southeast of Chatsworth. Heavily logged by Jones Mill for at least a hundred years or more, in the 1930’s it was all but stripped of trees except for a couple of virgin cedar swamps, which we’ll be visiting. Many areas are re-vegetated now, and we’ll be able to see some fine country with a mixture of really remote sandy areas and low savanna type land. Since we’ll be crossing and exploring along the Governor’s Hill Branch for awhile, we’ll get to see that too.
IMPORTANT: I very strongly suggest for this trip that you wear at least knee high rubber boots, or you WILL get your feet wet. We have to cross a long beaver dam early on, and if you wear regular hiking boots, you will be wet all day after that.
Rest assured, if the weather is awful, we’ll reschedule. There is no sense trying to wade through snow drifts, or freezing in 20 degree weather, or trying bravely to have a good time in a cold rainstorm.
But lets not think of that, my crystal ball says the day will be 40 to 45 degrees, calm winds, and sunny!
Happy Trails.....hope to see you there!
Well, as you can see from the date that was last Saturday, and with the chill factor in the single digits the trip was rescheduled for today. Our first stop today was the ruins of what I believe to be the home of mosser Selah Bowker and his family.
Moving on, we started our way towards the beaver dam across the Governors Branch and crossed quite a few frozen area's on the way.
The only way across was by crossing the beaver dam. Those without knee highs got quite wet.
Once across we followed the edge of the stream and Jeff stepped into a frozen quaking bog that he was able to get out of before sinking to his death. This video shows we would have been pulling on his head to get him out if he went under.
Now that we all knew to watch out for them, we carefully worked out way through the swamps. Well, almost everyone was careful. I lost my concentration and almost reached China. Without the frozen ice to hold me up, and quick thinking by Bob and Scott, I would have been in trouble.
Jeff again demonstrating the depth of the hole I fell into.
After some heavy plowing we made it to a road, and we soon realized there were other ways across the river. This foot bridge was built on the piles of an old bridge that was there many years before.
We followed the road, which turned to a small trail, and eventually made it's way to a deer stand. Here is Bob making his way up to the nose bleed section. Fifty year old men shouldn't do this type of thing!
Eventually we found a large deer stand on a very large cedar tree. The people who made this one hacked up the woods pretty bad to clear the area for their hunting pleasure.
Paul making his way up. Almost 60 year old men should not be doing this!
We finially made it to the "islands" which was one of the main reasons for the hike. These so called islands are area's cleared of almost all vegitation and have been since the 1930's and earlier. Nothing really grows there.
Our group photo. CW from top left is Manumuskin, Bobpbx, oji, Woodjin, RednekF350, Hewey, Paul who is not a member of this site, and Teegate (me).
Bob had a stick stuck to his hat for a while that we all kept watch on
All but Bob that is.
And as the sun was setting we arrived back at the beaver dam after a very hard day of hiking. This photo shows the view upstream.
A great day with great individuals who will certainly add photo's and information I excluded from this thread.
Guy
Late last year when I discovered the ruins near Chatsworth in the below photo, I was scouting out the newest PBX hike I was designing for this year.
I submitted all my info and planned waypoints to Bob and on 12/27 Bob sent this edited text to all PBX members.
Risley Branch Hike--A PBX Explore
Boys,
No one can blame you for looking out your window and cursing the rotten exploring weather over the past week. But have good cheer—it will get better!
We are going to hope so, and schedule a trip for Saturday, January 9, 2010. We will meet at 8:45 AM.
The title of this trip is Risley Branch Hike, and it was designed and being led by Guy, our dedicated Pine Barren Brother. This is an extremely wild area southeast of Chatsworth. Heavily logged by Jones Mill for at least a hundred years or more, in the 1930’s it was all but stripped of trees except for a couple of virgin cedar swamps, which we’ll be visiting. Many areas are re-vegetated now, and we’ll be able to see some fine country with a mixture of really remote sandy areas and low savanna type land. Since we’ll be crossing and exploring along the Governor’s Hill Branch for awhile, we’ll get to see that too.
IMPORTANT: I very strongly suggest for this trip that you wear at least knee high rubber boots, or you WILL get your feet wet. We have to cross a long beaver dam early on, and if you wear regular hiking boots, you will be wet all day after that.
Rest assured, if the weather is awful, we’ll reschedule. There is no sense trying to wade through snow drifts, or freezing in 20 degree weather, or trying bravely to have a good time in a cold rainstorm.
But lets not think of that, my crystal ball says the day will be 40 to 45 degrees, calm winds, and sunny!
Happy Trails.....hope to see you there!
Well, as you can see from the date that was last Saturday, and with the chill factor in the single digits the trip was rescheduled for today. Our first stop today was the ruins of what I believe to be the home of mosser Selah Bowker and his family.
Moving on, we started our way towards the beaver dam across the Governors Branch and crossed quite a few frozen area's on the way.
The only way across was by crossing the beaver dam. Those without knee highs got quite wet.
Once across we followed the edge of the stream and Jeff stepped into a frozen quaking bog that he was able to get out of before sinking to his death. This video shows we would have been pulling on his head to get him out if he went under.
Now that we all knew to watch out for them, we carefully worked out way through the swamps. Well, almost everyone was careful. I lost my concentration and almost reached China. Without the frozen ice to hold me up, and quick thinking by Bob and Scott, I would have been in trouble.
Jeff again demonstrating the depth of the hole I fell into.
After some heavy plowing we made it to a road, and we soon realized there were other ways across the river. This foot bridge was built on the piles of an old bridge that was there many years before.
We followed the road, which turned to a small trail, and eventually made it's way to a deer stand. Here is Bob making his way up to the nose bleed section. Fifty year old men shouldn't do this type of thing!
Eventually we found a large deer stand on a very large cedar tree. The people who made this one hacked up the woods pretty bad to clear the area for their hunting pleasure.
Paul making his way up. Almost 60 year old men should not be doing this!
We finially made it to the "islands" which was one of the main reasons for the hike. These so called islands are area's cleared of almost all vegitation and have been since the 1930's and earlier. Nothing really grows there.
Our group photo. CW from top left is Manumuskin, Bobpbx, oji, Woodjin, RednekF350, Hewey, Paul who is not a member of this site, and Teegate (me).
Bob had a stick stuck to his hat for a while that we all kept watch on
All but Bob that is.
And as the sun was setting we arrived back at the beaver dam after a very hard day of hiking. This photo shows the view upstream.
A great day with great individuals who will certainly add photo's and information I excluded from this thread.
Guy
