I visited a really nice 40 acre property with a pond on it. It is in a natural bowl with 3 hills. There hills hills East, NW and SW. I would own up to the tops of two hills East and NW, and a decent amount of the SW hill. The property hasn't been logged since 1987, and has minimal work done on it. A little bit of over grown road, and the pond was man made by blocking the gaps between hills. The pond is 150' wide at the widest, and 620' long. Listed as seasonal, but the neighbor said only one end tends to dry up during dry years and the south side is spring feed and stays all year round. Otherwise in wet years it is all year for most of the pond. I made an offer $8K under the listed price. The realtor said the owners had refused that price 3 times in the past. So bumped up to $4K under the list price and seemed agreeable to that being at least worth taking to the owners. So I made the bid and moving forward. It is a 30 day cash out offer, and while I expect them to counter rather than just accept I have my step father who is an architect, planner, and developer doing the negotiations for me. In other words I let a shark loose in the kiddie pool. So he is ready to keep firm on the price, or if they want more, a list of improvements that are needed as well as extending the cash out to 90 days, or even requiring a partial financing.
But it is looking like depending on the owners and how much negotiation is done, I could be closing in a month or so.
Keep your finger crossed, or send out some prayers, or wish me luck. Any little help I can get to make this happen is appreciated.
But let me share the story of how I got to the property. And then some pics.
First off, I driven over in the night and camped out at a lake park so I could get a nice early start to my land hunt. Had plenty of properties to look at. First one in the Coalville Rez, couldn't find though the area was lovely dotted with lakes and ponds. My GPS said it was right to my right but it definitely was not the right place. Maybe I entered the lat and long in wrong? Second was a nasty mess of slash piles. It would take a lot of effort to clean up and then the property itself wasn't all that great. Another and it was just way too steep slope with no benches or flat. On to two more, and a long drive on paved roads then a gravel road that was not very well done. The gravel road was recently washed out part way up and filled with course rubble rock. Still long ways down the gravel road and I come to a truck stuck in a mud hole, in the path blocking me from continuing. no way my CRV would make the hole if he got stuck. I hung out and did my best to help and offer support to the guy. And he did get unstuck. But the access issue crossed the next two off my list.
On to the property I am hoping to get now.
As I got off the 3 lane wide hard pack gravel road and onto the actual road that leads to the property I saw a guy walking along carrying groceries. I slowed down so not to kick dust up in his face and just past him, stopped poked out the door and asked "do wanna walk, or would you like a lift?" he asked where I was going, I told him and turns out he owns and lives on property that boarders the one I was there to look at. He offers to come up and show me around and tell me about the place and hops in.
View down into the valley about 3/4 the way up the road to the property.

I learned a lot about the road from my new friend and potential neighbor. While not horrible and it could use some work, he had lots to say about it. Obviously it was something he likely complains about a lot. A bit bellow the area I took the pic posted above, is a really nice homestead set up with wind and solar, who I was told are nice folks retired military and I look forward to meeting them later.
My passenger was giving all the gossip about the neighbors, pointing out one set just above where I took the pic who he felt were the ones responsible for the condition of the road. They had a big privacy fence, and posted security cam surveillance as well as a no trespassing including government agents etc. Most likely hard core Libertarians who don't want gov interference. My passenger mentioned the cops wont step on their property. LOL.
My passenger's place was just bellow mine, and the road goes right by his small 5th wheel camper. Not sure why folks put their places so close to the road, I sure wouldn't. Just past his place though and the easement road to the property I am looking at arrives.
The entrance to the property is an easement road that only leads to the property I am looking to buy

The easement road is a bit over grown and there is a small mud hole on easement road, but as you can see not a big problem.

Just a little ways and there is a for sale sign then just past that a barbed wire fence line that looks newish, as it still hasn't rusted. I suspect this is the property line for this side. But not completely sure, as it doesn't seem to cut the land like I would expect.



You can however see this easement road is in a narrow cut between a ridge and a big hill. Which would mean securing the entrance would be fairly easy.
Here is a pic from the road on the property looking up onto the ridge. Nice steep slope that would make putting a gate across the road quite effective.

The first thing you see coming on to the property is a large clearing/pad. Not quite level, with a SE down slope. But I could easily grade and level the space.
Sorry bout the dark camera phone pic, seems it had trouble dealing with the bright light at times.
This is the view coming down the road and looking out over the pad and pond beyond. Mostly east direction wise

Main clearing looking southish, the entrance road to the right of the pic

Main clearing looking northish, the entrance road to the left of the pic, my CRV behind that tree closest

And looking back up the entrance road, sorry again a bit dark

The pond is fairly hidden by trees, which I would do a lot of cutting down and using for some fencing, and other projects. But would want to clear and gain better access to the pond. However I do want to be careful not to go too crazy. I want to leave some trees and bushes around the water edge in places.

So this might be a good time to give you some areal reference to the property. To give an idea of where things are. This is the realtor's posted areal image, which gives not only an idea of the property and it's boundaries but also the parcels around the property. Top is north, the easement access comes in from the west side. *edit to add, I figured out later about 1/2 way along the west property line it turns into the property. The easement Rd actually follows the west line to about the middle of the line.

I had transferred the lines onto google earth to get a much better idea of the property ahead of going to visit it. Really like when they give you the property lines to understand what your looking at.
So on we go, while there is a road continuing down that goes to the south tip of the pond, lets move around the property the other direction, and go North to East and around the pond and back up to the clearing. Since that is the route I explored.

So up on the Northern hill/ridge. This was close to the western edge of the property.
Looking north *edit to add, this is actually looking west, but I had though it was North when making this post originally

Looking south

*edit to add, this is actually the area I plan to build my home, the south view would be the view from my house out.
Up on the hill and looking back over the property and the pond you get a great view. You can see how dense the tress are around the property, as well as the trees over on the eastern hill across the pond. That V notch was filled to help make the pond, and I was told the spring that feeds the pond is on that end.

Looking right from same vantage in pic above, toward the clearing and where I parked

Down closer to the pond looking toward the south end.

From here if you look northish, you can see a marsh where there is spillway for the pond overflow, as well as a nice little meadow.

around and over on that meadow, looking at the wetlands and spill way


And the spillway, a bit dark but it was obviously an intentional spillway man made

The pond mostly runs N & S, but where the spill way is a finger runs off to the east.
This is from where the marsh and spillway are, and the separation between the finger and main pond body

Beginning of that finger of the pond, looking back at the main body of the pond, looking west

same place but looking east down the finger

The pond's finger is fairly narrow and straight, but a decent looking depth.

Berm at the end of the finger

Looking down hill from on top of the berm, if there was no berm here all that pond water would flow right over and down this slope.
[img]hhttps://i.postimg.cc/tTZdRKcG/looking-down-hill-from-finger-berm-eastish.jpg[/img]
continued..
* edit March 21 2019, noticed image links broken and am fixing them so the thread can be enjoyed as it was meant to be.