Myeerah Nature Preserve — Local services in Jefferson Township

I wanted to share my visit today but I first want to tell you about me. I have always been a person who cares about our environment, nature, our planet in general. My wife and I, on several occasions, have cleaned up different park sites including debris which have fallen into creeks here around central Ohio. If I had to guess, I would say we have removed upwards of 3 pickup loads of trash, metal, furniture, and construction debris from different places. Over the years I have taught many children how to fish, respect and protect our environment including my own. Fishing and hunting protects the land because it doesn't allow over population to exist. There are many other reasons why fishing and hunting should always be protected but that is not what this post is about. Today's post is about another outdoor activity that does no harm in any way to the environment and has been shown to improve fish habitat. I am talking about gold panning. Not dredging or operating any kind of equipment. Just panning. My wife and I will normally go out and spend a few hours enjoying the fresh air and talking with the people we meet. Panning is a simple task of putting a shovel full of dirt in a pan and using gravity separation to allow the denser materials to fall to the bottom of the pan. Sometimes you can find other cool things like arrowheads or gems, also very rare occasions. Today's adventure was a mystery as we have never searched for anything at the creek in this location. I have never had luck finding any gold in this part of the state and was not expecting to see any. Gold in the Ohio region was brought here by glaciers thousands of years ago, Ohio has no natural gold of its own. The gold you can find here is smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. It is not about getting rich, it is about finding something that nobody has ever seen or will ever see unless it pulled from the creek. As stated above, we normally spend a few hours. After the next rain, you cannot tell someone has been panning in that area. We arrived today to find a couple park employees preparing a shelter house that must have been rented. We grabbed our two pans and small shovel and headed down to the creek. We were there approximately 5 minutes before we were told by the workers what we were doing is not allowed. I tried to explain we were not hurting anything but was shot down over and over. My wife and I are not for confrontation, especially with people who may be ignorant of something we may be doing, therefore we left. Before leaving we grabbed a water bottle which someone had left by the creek. Its funny that they can come in there with heavy equipment and tear up the land and build shelters, playgrounds and party houses. Not to mention running a septic system and electric for convenience. They put down thousands of tons of non native gravel and concrete slabs for the shelters and buildings. Now that the top of the hill has been completely altered we can call it a nature preserve and charge people money to come in and litter the facilities. Walking back to the truck you could see cigarette butts, straws, pop tabs and other stuff strewn about the gravel. Sitting down in the truck and pulling out I noticed a diaper sitting at the edge of the woods on the gravel. It's okay though as they protected that piece of gold the size of a period, which may not be there. Have we come so far in our world today that it is okay to impede someone who is not hurting anything, but allow the public in that may destroy the very thing they are trying to protect, all so they will have rental income from the park? Let's not forget, there is no fishing......unless you pay for the pass. I mean really? I was told that if we found an arrowhead in the creek that it was stealing to take it. I would actually have no problem donating it to the park but not being allowed in the creek we will never know if it exists. Do I feel the workers are really interested in preservation? Yes I do but this could have been handled...

Myeerah Nature Preserve (formerly Girl Scout Camp Myeerah) is owned and operated by Bellefontaine Parks and is open to the public during daylight hours. At 450 hours, this is the largest tract of public recreation land in the area. There are some very scenic areas, including ravines that would not look out of place in the Hocking Hills. Miles of hiking trails have been developed through volunteer efforts, two big impounded lakes are open to permit fishing, and there is a large created wetland area on the north end. Prescribed fire is used to maintain native tallgrass prairie areas in some of the old farm fields, and also to maintain the native oak forest. Plenty of parking throughout the preserve, and modern pit toilets are available at the main lodge building. This place is a real gem, and definitely worth a visit...

Nice, fairly quiet preserve with good trails. I found most of the trails clearly marked, with the exception of the ones in the ravine area, in the southeast section of the park. Also, restrooms (pit toilets) if they do exist, are not clearly noted. The front (south) entrance has a large sign clearly noting the entrance, but there are also numerous 8½” x 11” signs that one can only read, IF they park there (which is not allowed at that location), get out of the vehicle and scrutinize up close. In essence, those signs are...