Around mid-July, I happened to be in St. Andrews for our first family vacation of the summer. By this time, I had already visited all of the Nature Trust preserves in the immediate St. Andrews area, but had yet to visit the two that were closest to St. Stephen along the St. Croix River. My dad and I decided to check these out early on a Friday morning. We had brought a very rough map with us and we were also pressed for time due to family commitments later that same morning. Regardless, we were fairly confident that we could at least find the start of the main trail through Clark's Point Nature Preserve. Sure enough...we found it easily! However, we decided that we were most curious about whether or not we could find King Brook Lake on the McNichol-Orser Land Easement. After walking a few steps within Clark's Point, we chose instead to turn back and head out in search of King Brook Lake. |
We reached Macmahon Road and found a place to park the car. Then we set out...following a complete guess as to which trail might lead us to the lake. Maybe it was the massive clouds of mosquitos, the short window of time, or lack of confidence in our map...but we found ourselves turning around after about 45 minutes of searching. We didn't happen across any wetland whatsoever! But we still enjoyed having scouted out the area and the experience provided us more information for a return visit. Sure enough, when we were able to check satellite images upon our return, we concluded that the trail system we had followed was just shy of the lake (see above image). We also shared some laughs about the severity of the mosquitoes. Over the 10 seconds it took to pause and take this shot of my dad, it must have cost me several bites from the little vampires! You can see them circling over my dad in the photo. Funny enough...this was the only photo I ended up taking on this initial exploration! |