Mecan River Pine-Oak Forest features the only pine-oak forest in the Central Sand Plains Ecological Landscape of Wisconsin. This natural area is easily reachable from a parking area on the north side of Dixie Avenue, east of STH 22. A trail leads north a few hundred feet to the southeast corner of the site. Note that this is much shorter than the 0.7 miles the DNR site describes.
Mecan River Pine-Oak Forest was my last stop of the day. I found the forest to be a nice mixture of white pine, black oak, and red oak as expected. The combination of the gloomy, less than photogenic weather and the late spring made this hike a bit less exciting than it should have been. This forest should have had a nice groundlayer of spring ephemeral wildflowers, but there was little to be found on this day despite it already being May. That reality, of course, makes this site one that I need to revisit again and while there I will walk all the way to the river along the northern boundary, which I did not attempt on this day.
More of my photos (and full-res) from Mecan River Pine-Oak Forest can be viewed here.
Additional Information
| SNA # | 582 |
| County | Marquette |
| Natural Communities / Geology | Pine-Oak Forest |
| Size (Acres) | 142 |
| Parking | Parking Area |
| Trails | Yes |
| Easy to Find | Yes |
| Best Seen By | Foot |
| Marked Boundaries | No |
| Ownership | Wisconsin DNR |
| Located Within | |
| Dates Visited | 5.1.12 |
|
|
|---|
State Natural Areas of Wisconsin 