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March 23, 2002. There are two Compass Trails at Shiloh. Both begin and end at Shaw's store south of the main entrance to the battlefield. Basically you are given a list of 40 monuments and markers to visit with compass instructions on how to get to the next marker from the previous one. There is a question relating to each destination that can presumably only be answered correctly by visiting the appropriate site. Because one must generally head across grassy fields and densely wooded areas, it is advisable to do this hike from late fall to early spring when the undergrowth is thinner and snakes, chiggers, ticks, and other pests are pretty much gone for the season. In addition, the entire route (if no mistakes are made) is apparently upwards of 10 miles, so one must be cautious of time when the days are short. Late March was a good time to attempt this hike. Unfortunately we got on the trail at roughly 11 a.m., which did not leave us nearly enough time to complete the hike. But armed with a map, (a must), we elected to skip about 20 of the stops and do the first and last 10 stops on the route, leaving the rest for another day. (See the November, 2002, Shiloh trip report.) Joe Seago was our compass expert on this hike. He had given us instruction at the monthly meeting two days before, and we were ready to go. The first instruction was "From the concrete marker by Shaw's store, hike 58 degrees for 1900 feet to a red plaque for the 2nd and 7th Arkansas Infantry in the woods on the west side of Seay Field." We missed it by quite a bit! But once we located the this first marker we were able to begin checking off the markers on our list without too much trouble. The real problem tended to be when there were three or four markers within 500 feet of each other and we ended up close to the wrong one. One could sometimes see "something off through the trees" that might be the right one and after examining those signs or markers eventually come to the right one. It was a perfect day in late winter. Skies were clear and the temperature was near 50. Participants were Robert Davis, Sandy Davis, Vivian Norwood, Anna and Jim Clark, and Joe Seago. The hike was fun, educational, provided valuable exercise, and allowed us to see parts of this historic battlefield that seemingly only Boy Scouts, the participants in the battle itself, and a few intrepid hikers have seen. |
