Backyard Adventures

BACKYARD ADVENTURES 2018 PIKE PUBLISHING 1C BEAUTY STORY AND PHOTOS BY ANDY HEURING Secluded PIKE STATE FOREST CONTINUED ON THE NEXT PAGE > Pike County has a hidden treasure full of beautiful, acces- sible deep woods scenes, hiking, picnicking, bird watch- ing, camping and horse trails seldom replicated anywhere nearby. It is the Pike State Forest which has been around for more than 70 years. Its origins date back nearly 90 years. It is located at the end of SR 364 about five miles southeast of Winslow. It covers nearly 3,000 acres of mostly wooded areas. The state started acquiring acreage for the forest in 1924 and continued adding to that into the 1950s. In the 1930s the Works Progress Administration built numerous facilities in the forest including a shelter house, headquarters, maintains barn and a fire tower. The old wood shelter house is still in use providing a concrete surfaced floor with tables to seat about 50 people and open air on the sides. It is located in the woods and is probably the coolest spot in Pike County regardless of how high thermometers elsewhere have risen. There is a grill, fire pit and nearby playground. The play- ground features a large slide, swing set and teeter totters that have been there since the early 1960s. It has a large horse camp that sees the most traffic of any part of the park. Along with the horse camp are 7.5 miles of horse trails that wind through the hilly terrain. The River Trail which is 2.4 miles long winds the Patoka River. It is one of three trails. The other horse trails are Lookout Trail 2.2 miles long and Hog Branch Trail, which is a 2.9 mile trial that runs through the horse camp, as does the River Trail. The horse trails are also available to hikers as are numer- ous fire lanes that run through the nearly 3,000 acres. All the trails are off limits to motorized vehicles. A video of hik- ing on the Hog Branch Trail is located at https://bit.ly/2wjBx1Z. The horse camp features individual sites each with a fire pit, picnic table and tie offs for the horses. Pit toilets are available as is potable water. There is also a primitive camp ground that features po- table water, a fire pit, picnic table for each site and pit toilets. All campsites are self-registration. There are numerous picnic sites that typically feature one or two picnic tables and a fire pit or charcoal grill. One of the attractions is the State Forest's solitude. You will see other people around on weekends as the horse camp is often near capacity. On weekdays you can spend hours in the forest and not hear a sound other than nature, whether it's the wind blowing through the trees, a babbling brook, bird calls or animals scurrying about. The beauty of the Pike State Forest is that it makes a deep woods setting easily accessible by vehicles and only a short walk or in certain places no walk. The shelter house with a playground is a great place for a picnic with small children. A place where parents can expose their children to an easily accessible deep woods setting, with easy to walk trails for an even deeper woods setting. "It really is a sort of a hidden gem," said Marietta Smith, of Oakland City. She has spent hours in the Pike State Forest birding, walking the trails and looking for wild flowers. "It is a big enough woods. It can have scarlet tanagers. If you have scarlet tanagers, it is a big woods," said Smith. She added, "Worm eating warblers are there. That is a good sign." "The other thing is wildflowers. They aren't everywhere, A typical campsite in the horse camp at Pike State Forest with a picnic table, fire pit, horse tie off and shade. This shelterhosue, built in the 1930s by the WPA from trees cut in the forest, provides a rustic wooded setting for a gathering or picnic.

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