Shu Swamp Traditional Cache

This 60 acre area is more formally known as the Charles T. Church Nature Preserve and the Schmidlapp Lowlands. The word Shu is an old Dutch word, Sheogh, meaning cascading waters. Wolver Hollow Road was the dividing line between the Dutch and English until 1650. Frost Mill Road, Mill Neck.  Shu Swamp, is a wooded wetland fed by the Beaver Brook system. It offers 2.5 miles of trails, with boardwalks across muddier areas. Open every day except Friday.

Directions to cache:  Get on Frost Mill Rd in town of Mill Neck. On the West side of road just south of railroad bridge is a small public parking lot for visitors to the preserve.  The cache is near the parking area, but please explorer the preserve further by crossing the wooden boardwalk (made for viewing the lake) and so on. On the Northern  side of RR tracks is Beaver lake, which many of my fishermen buddies wish that someday there would be access for this “bass heaven”.  That will never happen since there is no stopping your car or parking anywhere in this wealthy area. You will see a tunnel to that lake north of the wooden boardwalk

Trees and plants here include the Acer rubrum (red maple), Liriodendron tulipifera (tulip tree), Nyssa sylvatica (tupelo).  It’s also home to evanescent spring flowers such as the trout lily, marsh marigold, Birch Bracket Fungus, dwarf ginseng and a rare shrub called hearts-a-Bustin, found nowhere else in New York State.  If you head down the trail, you will find the tallest tulip tree in New York State (167’)