November 23, 2008: Cherokee Marsh Conservation Park - Madison, Wisconsin

After a 3 week hiatus, I finally got out today for some hiking. I spent 1 weekend replacing the hard disk in my computer and doing a clean install of Windows. The next was bad weather, and last weekend I was down with some illness. Managed some reasonably good weather today, and all my chores were done, so I got out. Unfortunately, it is also the beginning of gun-deer season in Wisconsin, so I had to choose my location carefully. I decided on Cherokee Conservation Park on the north side of Madison. It is large with many miles of hiking trails, and I've managed to never visit the place before. Kind of weird since I work so near to it. The best part is that there is no hunting allowed here, but I know that there is all kinds of deer around.


Entering the trails at the upper marsh


There is an indian mound down near the water.




The seagulls were off in the distance where there was still some open water.






Walking into the wooded area again, I kept hearing some rustling. I finally caught a glimpse of some wild turkeys foraging in the brush. I stalked them for a while trying to get a photo in the clear. Well they sprinted across this path at full speed, it was difficult for the camera to focus and take the photo fast enough.




Found a viewing deck to take photos from.






Walked on up the highest hill in the park for a nice view.


It's not marked as such, but this was an obvious indian mound. The view overlooking the marsh makes this a logical place.


I regularly see park benches that are dedicated to the memory of somebody, but this is the first time I saw one dedicated for a wedding anniversary.


You can see all the way to Token Creek Park from that park bench.


A nice little pond area. Never saw pond scum frozen in ice before.


Here's a 180 degree panorama stitched-together of the pond.


Never saw any deer on the trails here, which was disappointing. Covered just over 3 miles, and decided to drive to the lower marsh section and look there. (you cannot walk to there as there is private property in between)

here is a 90 degree panorama at the parking area of the lower Cherokee Marsh Park.












Getting a little artistic here.






I had reached the furthest extent of this trail and looping back. I decided that there were no deer out today and was thinking I should just change to my wide lens and leave it when all of a sudden I hear loud rustling directly behind me. It was a doe, and was running away from me. It had been no more than 35 feet away from me and completely unnoticed as I looked out over the water. I literally had walked a loop around it too since this was the part where the trail looped around to go back. I did not manage to raise my camera to my face fast enough to photograph it in the clear, but you can just make out the hind-end to the left side, where I enhanced a circular spot in the brush.



Then I found some deer remains walking back to the parking area. There cannot be any predator bigger than a coyote here, so it must have died of natural causes and a scavenger carried this leg here.


Almost up to 5 miles walked now. Let's drive to a nearby park further into the city and look for a geocache.


3 or 4 years ago I visited this park to log a couple of geocaches. They have since been archived and a new geocache has been placed in this park recently. When I was poking around ground-zero, another person came within view walking along the trail. I kind of started taking photos right then to hide my true reason for being down in this spot. I took this photo, and didn't realize that the cache container was in plain sight in the frame. See it?


It was that rock by the base of the tree in the background. I spent several minutes poking around in logs and prodding fallen leaves before I figured it out.





I made sure to make it look more "natural" after I was done.


The remains of an old foundation nearby. Might have been a machine shed or a small barn.


Strange enough, I never noticed this little church building here before on the adjacent land. Likely because there is a large, modern church directly in front of it now.


I've been inside of that modern church building several times for my job, and it's just weird I never saw this here before.


Here's the track-log from my gps receiver overlaid on an aerial photo of the neighborhood. Walked for over 5 miles total, pretty good for loafing the last 3 weekends.