Free Range Naturist Hiking – Part A

A

“A” is for Active . . . Active Naturism or, as Richard Foley would have it, “Naktiv” – but since Naktiv starts with an “N” let’s forget it for the moment.

“A” is also for Autumn.  That is what the season is at the moment and so far it has been a pretty good one.  I would opine that it has been Awesome (because that starts with “A” too, but no one beyond the age of fifteen should be caught dead using that word.

Autumn is a good time for Active Naturism.  Why?  Because there are far fewer mosquitoes, blackflies and other sorts of annoyances.  It is also a time when the tourist count is low and the temperature (17-20 degrees Celsius / 63-68 Fahrenheit) is perfect for strenuous hiking . . . in my opinion.

But . . . Autumn is also hunting season, a time when the well-tanned naturist hiker should curtail activities likely to end with being mistaken for a moose, and shot. It is time to practise safe hiking.  (Safety note: Leave your moose antler hat at home no matter how cute it is.  And your backback, get one that is day-glo orange, or get an orange cover for the pack you have now.)
 

This tends to limit one’s outings to the provincial and national parks where hunting is forbidden.  Here in New Brunswick that means, mostly at least, the Fundy Trail and Parkway and the National Parks.  (Scheduling note: Fundy Trail and Parkway is closed for the season as of 12 October.  Hikers and bicyclists may park outside the gate and enter.  There will probably still be workmen around here and there.)  Take note that neither category of park is clothing-optional.  That aside, they are certainly large enough to accommodate a little free-range naturist activity and I have met other naked hikers in both sorts of parks at various times.

The parks are great for other reasons.  They have prepared trails that are well mapped and well marked.  They have parking and they often have toilet facilities at the trailhead.  And Autumn is great for other reasons.  The air is bracing and the colours are gorgeous . . . well, usually; more about that below.  Just use some common sense, common courtesy and the usual precautions.  If the parking lot is jammed with other vehicles the trail connected to it probably isn’t a good bet.  If you meet someone along the way step off the trail a don’t make a point of exerting your nudity.  Most people I’ve met have never seemed to mind.

An island in the lake at the trailhead

I set off of an Autumn Activity yesterday and headed to one of the national parks.  On arrival at the parking lot there was one other vehicle present, a camper with Québec plates.  I shouldered my day pack, slung my camera and headed off in quest of photos of Autumn foliage . . . unfortunately I had picked a bad day for it.  Once out of easy sight of the road I stripped off and went cheerily on my way and about ten minutes later happened upon the Québec couple stopped by the side of the trail on their return trip.  He was still starkers but she, a little chilly, was shifting into her kit so I just came on the way I was.  We exchanged the friendly greetings of kindred spirits and they assured me that the trail ahead was in fine shape.

The sun-dappled, leaf spangled trail beckons

So it was.  The streams and brooks were still running high but were no longer in spate from the 10 to 17 cms of rain we’d had last week.  Still, you could certainly see where the water had washed over the trail in places.  As for the object of my photographic quest, things were not good.  There was very little Autumn foliage worthy of the name.   Almost all was still green and summer-like, the leaves protected by mutual support within the forest canopy.  True, a few frosty nights had tinted some exposed trees beside the highway and others had shifted into their Autumn wardrobe due to stress, but for the most part the forest was still very green . . . on October 6 no less.  See for yourself:

Look ma, no autumn colours

. . . and in a leafy woodland glade no sign of yellow, orange or red

But all was not lost, it was an excellent day for naked hiking.  Keeping up a good pace I was sweating freely on the upward inclines of the trail and the air was evaporating it to leave me dry and comfortable.  Along the course of the trail these were the only hints of colour to be found, very disappointing:

. . . not much colour . . . not my fault

I walked to the end of the easy part of the trail, about 4.5 kms, the point where the trail loses its prepared nature and plunges downward along narrow and slithery switchbacks, then turned about and headed back the way I’d come.  I was nearly back to the “get dressed” line when I met a couple of hikers, twenty-something guys, stopped to adjust their gear.  Unseen, I slipped into my shorts and forged onward until they registered their surprise at seeing me . . . good thing I wasn't a bear.  They were equipped like an Everest expedition and clad in the numerous layers of PolarTec and GoreTex.  I would have died with that much kit on!  What were they going to do when it got cold?  I stopped and we discussed the trail.  They, wondering, asked if I was cold.  Hmm . . . two solitudes.  I told them “Heck no, usually I don’t wear this much.  Try it some time; you’ll like it.”

I’ll have to go search for Autumn leaves some other day, maybe drive northward somewhat.

Cheeseman Beach

Cheeseman Beach is NOT an official nude beach.  However it is used as such by at least a few local naturists willing to make the trek, and because of the trek it is really quite secluded.   Degree of difficulty getting there: Difficult to ARDUOUS, depending on which way you go.

Amenities: Nature, solitude, a fine sand beach and enough space for a comfortable camp above the tide line.  Other than that, nothing.  Anything that you’re going to need must be brought with you.  Anything that you brought with you must be taken back with you.

Wildlife:  On land:  moose, black bear, coyote, raccoons and smaller critters.  In the air: mostly sea birds.  In the water: usually harbour seals, sometimes porpoises and, rarely, pilot whales.

The beach is sandy and largish.  At high tide the water is muddy and very cold.  At low tide the tidal mud flats stretch out a long way and in some places can be somewhat treacherous. Best advice – stay on the beach.  When the tide comes in it comes in fast and often brings fog with it.  At low tide Frenchmans Creek becomes a small brook and is great for stream walking.

Satellite photo adapted from Google Earth

How to get there . . . 
 
Cheeseman is located on Canadian Nature Conservancy (1) land on the eastern shore of the Musquash (2) Estuary a few kms west of Saint John.  There are several ways to get there, this is the most direct:

– take NB Hwy 1 WEST from Saint John to Exit 112, turn LEFT and follow King William Road to the vicinity of NB Power’s Coleson Cove generating station.  When I say that you can’t miss the station I am not kidding;

– just BEFORE the generating station turn RIGHT onto Burchill Road.  This road is not signed and is to all intents and purposes abandoned.  Drive slowly and slalom through the potholes keeping a careful eye out for oncoming vehicles or moose, one is as likely as the other;

– follow Burchill Road for 2.6 kms to a turn-off on the left where you can park one vehicle only, or go over the hill a bit and there is a crushed rock quarry on the left where you can park hundreds of cars if need be.  Park and walk from either point.  The track into the bush was once Cheeseman Beach Road but was allowed to grow in with alders on both sides; it has been hogged out within the last few years and is once again wide enough for a single vehicle all the way down the hill to the aqueduct right-of-way.  The road shows signs of a few vehicles having passed over it and it is also used by four-wheelers (indeed, what road isn't?) but you’re in the middle of nowhere so you can go naked from this point onward;

– follow Cheeseman Beach “Road” downhill for 800 metres where you come to an open space where the “Aqueduct Trail” forms something of a crossroads.  The continuation of the Cheeseman Beach Road is straight across but, as of August 2019, is grown in with alders on both sides.  Continue onward for maybe 300 metres to where the bridge/culverts used to cross Frenchman’s Creek. (3)  The bridge has been history for a long time and that is why you have to check the tide table before you head off on this trek.  You should only try to ford the creek a few hours either side of low tide; plan your trip accordingly; and 

– once you’ve crossed Frenchmans Creek, Cheeseman Beach is about 700 metres ahead. Follow the rather more faint trail uphill and beneath the first set of electric power lines.  You then pass through a linear stand of forest where the trail forks.  Take the LEFT fork and after passing beneath the second set of power lines, continue on to Cheeseman Beach.  This may require a degree bushwhacking unless some kind soul has been there before you and cleared the way.  


The other way to walk to Cheeseman is rather more difficult.  Note the red and yellow triangle on the satellite photo above.  This is the trailhead if you need to get out when the tide is too high to ford Frenchmans Creek, you get there by following the RIGHT hand fork of the trail back in forest between the sets of power lines.  The trail itself is the CNC Five Fathom Hole Trail leading from a parking lot near Prince of Wales to the red and yellow triangle.  It is not an easy trail except the first bit of it near the parking lot.  Its total length is about 4.5 kms of rather rough going, not to be attempted in the dark under any circumstances.



The third and easiest way to get to Cheeseman is via sea kayak from Black Beach.  Access to this launch point is via King William Road to the generating station, then follow the signs for Black Beach.  Go while the tide is still running in so you can paddle right up to the beach, otherwise you have to contend with the tidal flats.

(1) For more about the CNC Musquash Estuary property
(2) Muquash is an Algonkian word meaning “muskrat”
(3) Frenchmans Creek was named for the French privateer (pirate) Capt Baptiste who sojourned here with his corvette (pirate ship) La Bonne over the winter of 1694-95, after it was chased inshore by an English cruiser (pirate).  According to local lore, the crew deserted and the corvette fell to ruin and sank.
                           

Nude New River

 I went hiking a few days ago to explore the potential for stream walking in the upper reaches of the mighty New River.  The New is really more of a biggish stream than a river.  It rises in the uninhabited wilds of Clarendon Parish at the outflow of Adelaide Lake, then wends its way through forest and bog gathering along its course the waters of the Tamarack and several other brooks.  It meanders placidly much of the time but is given to pitching itself violently downslope wherever terrain allows, as it does on several occasions.  Finally it meets tidewater at New River Beach where it flows into the Bay of Fundy through a tangle of rapids and rocks.

My destination was one of the New’s scenes of violence, a set of continuous rapids between two placid pools, a pitch of about eleven metres vertical drop over a run of about four hundred metres, circled in yellow on the satellite photo below.  Being situated more or less in the middle of nowhere the falls’ name, if it has one, isn’t posted for the casual tourist.  I have asked locally and checked with Natural Resources but it seems to be a no-name feature.  For the moment it remains anonymous, a John Doe waterfall.

The head of the rapid looking upstream from Tanners Rocks

I had not seen the place before except from the vantage point of a satellite passing overhead – thanks to the CIA by way of Google Earth – so I chose my target the same way that SAC does, just not with the same grisly intent. The day was fine with high twenties (Celsius degrees of course) and a sky of sun-washed blue only lightly scattered with tiny clouds.  The drive to get there was easy enough: NB Hwy 1 West to Exit 86, then Hwy 175 to Hwy 780, then Hwy 780 for six kms to the crossroads with forest harvest Road #6.  Then it was hidey-ho, onward we go, over the dirt roads to wherever you'd like to go.  Caveat: Do not head out here with the family grocery-getter unless it has four-wheel drive, you’ll need the extra ground clearance. 

Actually, I halted about 150 metres or so short of the river bank where the road dead-ends.  In truth, it veers to the right and continues, but from that point it becomes more of a marsh than a road.  Beyond the dry end of the road there was nothing but forest, not even a game trail, so I bushwhacked my way through fern, scrub and riparian forest not bothering with a compass.  My ears were leading me straight to the sound of the unseen rapids.  On reaching the bank I found the river running high and fast due to recent rains, but it had obviously receded a metre or so in depth during the last few days.  You could see where patches of sedges had been combed flat by the flood and where the New River had, briefly at least, been twice the width I found it when my bushwhacking brought me to its rocky bank.  I had lucked out and had arrived quite by accident at the comfortably flat rocks near the top of the rapids. These are the only such rocks on the eastern bank along the run of this falls, all the rest are fractured with many exposed sharp edges, altogether not good for lounging or laying out to work on one’s tan.  Therefore I named the big smoothish rocks Tanners Rocks.

Tanners Rocks looking upstream

In my mind I divided the falls into three sections, from the upstream pool to the second drop past Tanners Rocks; then a dogleg stretch ending at the top of a final drop and the final drop itself.  From top to bottom is a run of about 420 metres, encompassing a total vertical drop of about thirteen metres.  

Split Falls looking downstream

I realized immediately that the potential for stream walking here was infinite, at that point where infinity approaches zero.  The New was too full, too deep and too fast for stream walking but it would be a great spot for creek kayaking or rafting with something the size of an Aire Puma.  A full-sized outfitter’s raft would be too big – I know; I used to be a raft guide.  This falls rates a solid Class III, probably a Class III+ because of the narrow channel, quick changes of direction and the near impossibility of either shore rescue or self-rescue.  Until you wash over the left drop of the final drop self-rescue by survival swimming is the sole option.  It is the sort of run that creek kayakers might do several times in a day, just for the fun of it.  But there is a problem with that concept, there is no riverside portage trail to hump your kayak back to the top of the run, not unless you’re a moose.  And the terrain is “difficult.” [I use “difficult” here as a euphemism for several other words that spring to mind and lip, none of which are polite.] There is also the problem of the put-in and take-out points.  Put-in at the upriver pond could be managed by some energetic souls hacking a trail through a scant sixty metres of bush.  Take-out exists nine hundred metres downstream on the left, just at the head of the next rapid and requires a 2.5 km shuttle over quite decent woods roads.  Both put-in and take-out will require humping the boats a couple of hundred metres.

Outflow from the eddy below Split Falls

Okay, so stream walking wasn’t an option here.  That really wasn’t that big a deal because the woods roads in the area make it a great place for free-range nude recreation: driving, hiking, camping, fishing and even bicycling . . . and skinnydipping.
 

Never overlook an opportunity for skinnydipping

And for the naturist naturalist there are many sights besides the flora.  In the space of five hours I saw hares, bears, beavers, moose and a young coyote, also many more frogs than I had seen in a long time.  All of this was free for the looking and free of any other person driving through.  Many of the roads out here are dead ends and that helps.  I walked about twelve kms in all, taking my time, walking in and out of sun and shade and thoroughly enjoying myself.  The only strenuous part of the trip had been the bushwhacking in the first instance and then breaking trail alongside the river.  After that it was a walk in the park, but a park of a very different sort.  The area is not parkland, it is a working forest with few areas unharvested except the riparian strips and inaccessible bogs.  Many areas are in various stages of regrowth and are provide wildlife habitat that old growth forest would have denied.  The ease of access and good footing is provided by all those dead-end harvest roads.  So if you go there consider the positive aspects along with the scars left by forestry and the powerline corridor.

But speaking of parks, a very nice thing about the area is that it is located close to New River Beach Provincial Park.  NRBPP is not a nudist recreation area -- which is really unfortunate but totally expected -- but it does have campsites for your tent or your land yacht, as well as a great saltwater beach.  So it provides a good base camp for your nude explorations of the New River back country.  Enjoy!