Fort Jackson Park - Part 2

I'd made a last minute decision to check out the Fort Jackson town park and found it much larger and more wild than I had imagined. I took a dirt lane downhill, deeper into the forest and across this bridge. Then I turned up another dirt lane to see what was there:

The small stream was attractive and wild:

And the small side "road" took me only as far as the dam which no longer held back any water. The lane was so narrow that I had to back down it to return to the main "road:"

I continued downhill on the dirt lane just to see what surprises it might have for me:

But made another turn when I saw this sign pointing me toward the ball field:


Indeed, there was a softball field with a small set of bleachers, though no one was using it on that rainy day:

Then I returned to the main "road" toward the Picnic Area & Fishing. It was clear that someone was carefully tending this park. The grass was all mowed and flowers had been planted at the base of the sign:

The dirt lane took me to the banks of the St. Regis River. There, far from any paved road, was a wonderful picnic area:

And the St. Regis River is always a scenic gem:

The dogs would have loved coming here, but that would have to wait for another day:

I enjoyed the river view for a short time:

And then returned the way I'd come, following the serpentine dirt lane through the forest and back to the county road:

Fort Jackson Park - Part 1

I had shopping to do in Potsdam, so the dogs were not with me. I did, however, take a back roads "short cut" through Fort Jackson just for the fun of it. When I got to the park, I hesitated for a second and then drove on. But I only made it another 100 feet or so before I turned around to investigate. It was obviously so tiny that I was seeing it all from the road, right?:

I pulled in off the road and past a basketball hoop. A magnificent farm could be seen just across the road:

I followed the road to a clearing, clearly designed for picnics:


It was adjacent to a small stream:

Which led to a marshy area and a dam which no longer held water. This had once been a nice pond:

There were nicely maintained picnic spots along the stream:

I drove in and, just as I'd figured, there was nothing much else to see. So I took what appeared to be a dirt lane out of the park:

And found myself going deeper and deeper into the forest:

The dirt lane followed a stream:


And took me across a very small bridge:

From the bridge I could see the no longer functioning concrete dam. Clearly there was more to this park than I at first had thought, but I'll post Part two tomorrow: