Please join Protect Geauga Parks as we take a hike through some beautiful woods at Beartown Lakes Reservation on Monday, May 2nd at 2:00 PM. We will meet at the end of the Beartown park drive (a large shelter is there). We will do about 3 miles of hiking, most flat but a few small hills. It can be slightly wet in places if there has been a rain. This is a great time to see a wonderful forest where we have seen turkey, hawks (including one nest), owls and deer plus several beautiful small lakes that hold waterfowl. Bring binoculars to see our wildlife up close. And do so before the Geauga Park District decides on whether to put a huge cell tower in the midst of this rolling forested park.

Description of Beartown from the Geauga Park District website:

Spring Creek, a tributary of the Aurora branch of the Chagrin River, flows along the northwest boundary of the park. Wetlands exist adjacent to this stream and around the lakes. Beaver lodges can be seen in these areas. Three interconnecting lakes and a smaller pond cover more than 22 acres of the park. Upper Bear Lake teems with frogs, turtles, water snakes and other aquatic life. Middle Bear Lake has many dead snags for cavity nesting birds, while Lower Bear Lake is larger and deeper, supporting populations of bass, northern pike and bluegill. Migrating waterfowl flock to all four bodies of water each spring and fall. Beech-maple forestland covers approximately 70 acres of the park. These woods are carpeted each spring with wildflowers. A successional hardwood forest, a pine stand, shrub thickets and a meadow abundant with wildflowers and grasses offer a variety of habitats to many species of wildlife, including songbirds, deer and a variety of small mammals.

For directions to this beautiful park:

http://www.geaugaparkdistrict.org/parks/beartown.shtml