When asked to name a favorite place in the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, Heidi Wilde and Kennedy Gilchrist—long-time members of the Friends of the Preserve—picked this observation platform overlooking the Class of 1918 Marsh.
Here’s what they wrote:
This open-view observation deck offers relative isolation from the University and its recreational fields nearby. Here we can rest quietly, enjoy a picnic lunch, or observe marshland wildlife at close range. If we are fortunate, we can hear or even see a rare, if not unique, event-wild cranes that successfully live and nest on a university campus.
This observation platform is the only amenity for visitors that dates back to the original restoration of the Class of 1918 Marsh in the late 1960s. While the benches have become twisted and weather-beaten from the freezing and thawing of the seasons, and although the original signs have faded, this remains a lovely place to escape from the city to be surrounded by wind, water, birds, and blowing cattails as the busy activity of campus recedes into the far distance.
