Pagan Journeys

General Topics => General Chat => Topic started by: FollowtheFox on August 24, 2014, 12:42:06 AM

Title: Your favourite nature spot!
Post by: FollowtheFox on August 24, 2014, 12:42:06 AM
I love national forests, state parks, and nature refuges! My goal is to visit most (in the U.S. at least) or all I can before I die :whistle:
With that being said! Do y'all have a place near you that you like to visit, or maybe some place you visited a long time ago and wish to return to? And why do you like this particular place!?

My favourite near where I live is Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge! I had remembered going as a child, but not much about it. When I went again for the first time in  years earlier this Spring I discovered what a pleasant and amazing place it was. Old ruins of settlements on the land, swampland in abundance (which I was attracted to when I visited Florida), and, Ohmygosh OTTERS! There are several paths to wander, as well as old and new woodlands. :)
Title: Re: Your favourite nature spot!
Post by: earthmuffin on August 24, 2014, 09:49:46 AM
I have four local places that I try to go to every year on or around Ostara, Beltane, Lammas, and Mabon but don't get these place often enough. The first one is a wildflower reserve on top of a volanic butte, the second is a nearby creek, one is an area of high mountain lakes about 2 hours away, and the third is a really cool granite dome that has Native American significance, I am told. They are all very beautiful and special to me.

I am currently at Lake Tahoe, another great nature place that is not too far and we try to get to every year at least once.

One place that stood out from my childhood camping adventures was Glacier National Park. The beauty of the glacier was like nothing I had ever seen before. Ptarmigan were everywhere around the path and a mountain goat walked right past me along the edge of a cliff. I will never forget that place and how excited I was.  Somewhere I have a faded picture of it taken with my little camera that took flash cubes. I hope to return there some day and find it has not changed much.

Another place I would recommend to any nature buff is Kearney, Nebraska in March of April during the Sandhill Crane migration. The town and the Platte River aren't much to see themselves but the millions of cranes flying in and flocking to the river is a sight you will see nowhere else on earth.
Title: Re: Your favourite nature spot!
Post by: dragonspring on August 24, 2014, 10:10:54 AM
I live near Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  I actually moved here from Texas because I fell in love with the place.  GSMNP is a temperate rain forest with a wide variety of flora and fauna - over 17000 species have been identified so far. From giant Hemlocks to blooming Mountain Laurel to the fall colors - it is just beautiful.  The Appalachians are one of the oldest mountain ranges  in the world  - over 1 billion years old. The Smokies are also a World Heritage Site with many historic sites relating to the settlement of this area.    It is hard to describe ancient energy I feel when I plant myself on a giant Precambrian rock next to a waterfall.  It is just bliss.
Title: Re: Your favourite nature spot!
Post by: vordan on September 02, 2014, 12:58:43 AM
I love so many places. If you are wandering into Ohio, the neighboring state, you must check out Glen Helen in Yellow Springs Ohio. There are also pagan shops in the town worth looking at and a haunted tavern. The other absolute must see area of Ohio is Hocking Hills which is a whole series of beautiful places clustered together. I lived in Flagstaff Arizona, hiking Oak Creek Canyon was beautiful. I loved the Redwoods also in California. I am walking in the woods somewhere around where I live several times a week there I so many beautiful places.
Title: Re: Your favourite nature spot!
Post by: FollowtheFox on September 02, 2014, 02:24:33 AM
I'm hoping to start taking some trips once I get a job, and this gives me some great ideas in driving distance vordan! I've always wanted to visit the Redwoods though, hopefully some day!
Title: Re: Your favourite nature spot!
Post by: vordan on September 02, 2014, 10:17:09 AM
I'm hoping to start taking some trips once I get a job, and this gives me some great ideas in driving distance vordan! I've always wanted to visit the Redwoods though, hopefully some day!

Close to Indiana in Ohio, try also Bruckner Nature  Center, near Troy,  beautiful walks to chose from and a nature center with lots of live critters in the basement and in shelters in back. Also try Hueston Woods State Park near the Indiana border, a small walk but some old trees, a covered bridge, a pioneer village and another nature center
Title: Re: Your favourite nature spot!
Post by: FollowtheFox on September 03, 2014, 12:47:49 AM
Ah, you hit another favourite of mine vordan! Covered bridges!
Title: Re: Your favourite nature spot!
Post by: Adhara on November 08, 2014, 01:41:38 AM
Moab/Arches/Four Corners area for sure.  Also would like to get back to Lehman Cave and, though I've not been there before, maybe Carlsbad Caverns someday.  Deserts and caves seem to be my thing, perhaps because I'm allergic to the majority of plant life and it is thus in those places that I can breathe most freely.  For all that trees are beautiful, they still keep trying to kill me every spring.  I grew up on a lot of roadtrips, and while I did enjoy Yellowstone and Yosemite a great deal, it is the Southwest that speaks to me most deeply.  I've recently taken to collecting roadrunners as a sort of good luck charm/maybe power-animal-ish kind of thing, though I do recall being mightily disappointed as a child by their lack of resemblance to the cartoon.  But then, the cartoon was mostly passive, though elusive, coyote prey, whereas the real thing is an impressive hunter famed for slaying of venomous snakes much larger than itself and even shows up in one Native American legend as a Prometheus-like fire-bringer.
Title: Re: Your favourite nature spot!
Post by: vordan on November 08, 2014, 09:54:43 PM
I went to school in Flagstaff Arizona for a year when young, I loved that area the forest was beautiful there and had some serious energy. I joined the hiking club and wandered some very remote places, best part of the year out there was the hiking. Water usage made me sad in the SW, too many people on finite resources. The land there was never meant for large cities. I really loved the distance vistas in the scenery in the Southwest, most things in the Midwest are close to medium range visually. The color in the exposed rocks were astounding also.
Title: Re: Your favourite nature spot!
Post by: thegeekwitch on January 14, 2015, 04:53:04 AM
My favourite local spot is the Tasmanian Arboretum (http://www.tasmanianarboretum.org.au/), which is where we were married and we recently went back for family photographs with the four of us.  It is a beautiful spot and it feels so energetic.  Plus I just love trees :)
Title: Re: Your favourite nature spot!
Post by: vordan on February 04, 2015, 10:14:27 PM
My favourite local spot is the Tasmanian Arboretum (http://www.tasmanianarboretum.org.au/), which is where we were married and we recently went back for family photographs with the four of us.  It is a beautiful spot and it feels so energetic.  Plus I just love trees :)

I am curious as to how much of Tasmania is forested? I understand that you have mountain forests and something like a temperate rain forest which I picture being like Washington State more cool damp. Are the forested areas very extensive, can you hike for days?
Title: Re: Your favourite nature spot!
Post by: thegeekwitch on February 05, 2015, 12:19:30 AM
My favourite local spot is the Tasmanian Arboretum (http://www.tasmanianarboretum.org.au/), which is where we were married and we recently went back for family photographs with the four of us.  It is a beautiful spot and it feels so energetic.  Plus I just love trees :)

I am curious as to how much of Tasmania is forested? I understand that you have mountain forests and something like a temperate rain forest which I picture being like Washington State more cool damp. Are the forested areas very extensive, can you hike for days?

I'm trying to find the figure and can't, but at a guess I'd say over 60% of the state, probably even more.  Big battles over deforestation and old-growth forests, none of which I'm really *that* clued into sadly.
I'm not much of a hiker - I do like being out in the wilderness but I prefer daytime only lol! But there are trails that suggest days, yeah.