2015-07-25 43 -84

From Geohashing
Sat 25 Jul 2015 in 43,-84:
43.3067980, -84.8888245
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Location

In a wood near Carpenter Creek, Sumner, MI, USA.

Participants

Mcbaneg (talk)

Plans

Will try for this one this afternoon. Several approaches seem possible; will try the approach from the east, from the end of Klees Rd, first. Expect to arrive at Klees Rd around 2:45 pm. It will be necessary to cross Carpenter Creek, but it looks like an old tractor road extension of Klees Rd does continue past the creek. I'm therefore hopeful of a gravelly ford rather than steep muddy banks.

Expedition

Well, I really wanted to succeed at this one. It would have been the next-to-last graticule I needed for Minesweeper. It was not to be.

I arrived at the end of Klees Rd around 2:45 as expected, to find the woods-road extension toward the hashpoint blocked by a gate and a No Hunting or Trespassing sign. The sign did have the good grace to say "without permission", but it gave no contact information.

I walked back down Klees Rd to the last house. I could see the occupant working in his back yard, so I petted the friendly dog and walked around and spoke to him. I explained my mission, and he seemed sympathetic, but said "I don't own that land. I just own this five-acre strip that goes up to the woods there." I asked if he did know who owned it. He gave me the landowner's name, and said he owned a 120-acre tract that extended past the gate. He had met the landowner only once, and basically apologized for not being able to give me permission to enter: "If it was my land, I'd say sure, go ahead, but I don't know him well enough to tell you he wouldn't care." I asked him if he knew where the landowner lived, and he named a small town maybe eighteen miles south.

I walked back to the car, and with name and town I was able to look up the landowner's phone number and address. I tried calling but did not get through. So I tried the other approaches I had identified on the map; two had explicit No Trespassing signs and one did not but was obviously not a reasonable public approach.

At this point it was about 4 pm. Since home was southwest, and the landowner lived to the south, I thought "what the heck, I'll see if I can find him in person." Google Maps guided me nicely to the address. From the road there was a gravel driveway with a gate that stood open and a sign giving the name of the property and saying "Peace" across the top. Beyond that the driveway disappeared into a stand of young trees. I turned in and followed it maybe 500 m to the very nice but not ostentatious house. There were two dogs in the front yard (one tethered, one loose), a car in the driveway, and clothing drying on the front porch rail. I petted the dogs and rang the bell, but got no answer. I peeked around back - the house has a beautiful view over the adjoining land - but saw no one. I resigned myself to No Trespassing and headed home.

Photos

Achievements

Notrespassing.gif
Mcbaneg (talk) earned the No trespassing consolation prize
by almost (305 m) reaching the (43, -84) geohash on 2015-07-25.