Bearsden Wildlife Refuge

I went on an adventure today to Bearsden Wildlife Refuge. I realized when I got there that I had been once before. Before my back surgery, I just wanted to get out into nature… I was roaming around in the car and stumbled upon this place. At the time it was very painful to walk. I walked about 1/20 of a mile (like a 3 minute walk) and then back to the car. It took me about 45 minutes as putting one foot in front of the other was difficult at the time. Well today I planned to go here but I had forgotten I’d been once before. I walked the distance I walked before in about 3 minutes and realized how awesome it was to experience the same place with a healthy back. I also realized that the first time, I was basically still in the parking lot. I never made it to the main trail… just to this sign:

This time… I was in a completely different mindset. I’m thrilled to be able to hike again and I went deep into the forest.

I ended up at an area where all the trees were cut down. It turns out they cut the trees down on purpose because some of the wildlife needs the young trees and bushes to thrive and white pines took over the area.

This is about an hour walk into the forest. I knew on the other side there was a pond and a river so I went to check it out and found some crystal clear water and streams feeding the pond.

I didn’t see the river at first… but I found a trail that headed that way and it turns out that there were train tracks that followed the river in a valley. I decided to try to take the train tracks back towards the car knowing I had a full charge on my cell phone and it was nice weather around noon…

Hiking down the tracks, I ended up about 1 mile from my car and of course…. there was no trail! Lol so I looked at Apple maps on my phone and found the car and just started walking towards it. Also of course, the car was on the other side of a small mountain. So, I just basically forged my own trail over the mountain and eventually about another hour later, I found my car. I was surprised, but this early in the season…. since the bushes and small trees have no leaves, it wasn’t too hard to just walk through the woods with no trail. It was a little adventure during a pandemic with no people for miles and was nice to get out in such nice weather today. Tomorrow is supposed to be even nicer, so if my feet will hold up…. I’m going to explore somewhere new. Hope you’re having a good time in the sunshine this weekend :)