Well now that I’ve got a new Camera I’ve been doing a lot of walking around parks that are resonably close to where I live and one of those is the Malcom Knapp Research Forest. It’s not like some of the other parks that are geared at recreation, it’s a working forest where folks are running experiments and testing things related to forestry.
It’s a bit strange walking through there and suddenly coming into a spot that’s been completely clear cut so that they can test methods for quickly re-populating the local trees, or areas that have apparently been purposefully left overgrown.
While it is a working forest there’s still a fairly good number of trails there to walk around, as well as service roads that run through the park connecting up to various places.
Those roads make for some interesting spots where you come across warning signs for traffic in the middle of the woods but at some point you could come into contact with logging trucks or other vehciles running around in the forest.
There are several trails to pick from, so there’s still a good chunk of the forest that I haven’t had a chance to walk through, but what I have walked through has been generally well marked. Some of the trails are on the overgrown side but not to a point where you can’t find them or get to where you are looking to go. There are however enough crossings and switchbacks that you should keep a map on hand if not a GPS to keep track of where you are in the forest.
The nice thing is that the folks who run the forest are pretty restrictive about what they allow in the park, so you don’t have bikes (electric, pedal, or otherwise) that you have to worry about so it’s a very quiet place to walk around. And while there are lakes there it’s not like Golden Ears where you get as many people there for a swim in the lake.