Serenity in Beaver Meadow

Even though I had logged beaucoup miles yesterday in Allegany State Park, I really wanted to get outside today and hike a few more.  I figured it would be good to stretch my tired legs, and if I could find the right spot, I could minimize the climbing of any mountains!

One of the nearby multi caches that caught my eye was Serenity at Beaver Meadow by Nature Noggins.  Normally a cache like this wouldn't remain unfound for very long, but the truth of the matter was that I had actually found it already.  It was originally placed on an alternative geocaching website called Terracaching.com.  There are a few other "alternative" caching websites outside of Geocaching.com which is far and away the most popular and mainstream source for caching goodness.

Anyway, after it was removed from Terracaching, it found a new home (and a much larger audience) on Geocaching.com.  Since that transition, I just haven't found it officially so that I could finally log it properly.  So, knowing the layout of the cache, I figured I would enjoy this long hiking cache, check on all the legs and enjoy the beautiful scenery at Beaver Meadow Audubon Center.  Beaver Meadow is operated by the Buffalo Audubon Society - which is a non-for-profit organization that according to their website promotes appreciation and enjoyment of the natural world through education and stewardship.  They have a number of nature preserves and centers throughout the Western New York.  They do some pretty cool stuff there too - as I've been involved with bird banding, nature hikes, festivals, geocaching activities and the Enchanted Forest (which is a magnificent event).

Long story short - Beaver Meadow is 384 acres of diverse and extraordinary landscape that encompasses hardwood forests, conifer lots, swamps, kettle ponds and much more.  Oh yeah, and it ain't that hilly!  So this was the perfect spot to take a long hike without abusing my body any more than I already have.  :-)  I made a call out to Chicky to see if she would like to accompany me, and soon we were heading towards our destination.  Since we knew the direction this cache was taking us, we parked "in the middle" and hiked out to leg one.  Here you'll find an long winding boardwalk that gets you up close and personal with one of the swampy areas in the Meadow.

We found the first leg after a little searching.  Honestly I had to brush the dust off the brain a little, so I can imagine the added challenge for people who haven't found this before.  But after a little head scratching, I some looking, we found what we needed and started our way towards leg two.  One of the things I love about Beaver Meadow is all the little kettle ponds in the woods, and the second leg took us a pretty remote one actually.  There we found the second leg and enjoyed ourselves a little R&R as we soaked in the sights.

From there we continued on our merry way, exploring more spots in Beaver Meadow that we hadn't visited in quite some time.  Even though the skies were overcast and it was a little chilly out, the hiking was pretty good as the trails weren't too sloppy.  With the exception of one 2-minute moment, the rain was nonexistant.  It was a good morning to hike!  Leg 3 gave us our biggest wildlife sighting for the day - a bunny!

What a cute little bugger right?  We would see a baltimore oriole later in the day, but that was driving home and not on this hike (but it was still pretty damn cool!)  From leg 3 to 4 was the longest hike between legs for the day.  It also provided us with my favorite portion of this cache - the open hardwood forest!  Here we made a ton of wonderful discoveries including wild flowers, leaks, skunk cabbage, mayapples and Chicky's favorite - trilliums!  So needless to say, the hiking was slow as we endeavored to capture every morsel we could get our hands on. 

All in all, hiking in Beaver Meadow was fantastic.  Interestingly enough, before finding the final, we noticed a small sapling had very recently been cut down along the trail and someone took the lower trunk but left the rest.  It was perfect for a hiking stick...so now I have it sitting in my apartment drying. While I don't condone cutting down stuff in a nature preserve, I do subscribe to mindset that "no good hiking stick goes to waste!"  In total, Chicky and I probably hiked around two miles and a little change.  While my knees were noticeably sore on some of the inclines, it was a great adventure and I'm so totally glad we hit the trail today...because within an hour or two after it started to pour...which sucked.  The rain has to stop eventually right!?!