Week 6: Raven Rock

February 6, 2010

It’s been pouring dogs and cats here since Thursday; I imagined that hiking today would be a bit soggy. I purchased a rain coat for the hike because the weatherman predicted a rainy day. To my delight, I woke this morning to find the weatherman was wrong. I headed down US1 reading the signs as I went. The Deep River. As I crossed the bridge and looked out across the river, it was true to its name. All of the rain that has been pouring down had flooded the river banks. I took the next exit to try and get a closer look at the river. I went right – nothing. I turned around and went back across the highway and found another bridge that crossed the river. I stopped and snapped a few pictures.

When I got to Raven Rock State Park, it was 35 degrees and cloudy. I started out on the Raven Rock Trail. It was muddy as I expected. It was not long before I heard running water. I crossed over a meandering stream. The path followed the stream and eventually I changed paths to Little Creek Trail. Another very fitting name since; it followed the creek. As I walked the trail, I could hear the sweet music of the creek. Trickling and roaring; rising and falling. It made the stroll absolutely delightful.

The one thing about this particular hike was that everything was covered in fungus. Tree bark was covered in florescent green fuzz or orange bracket fungus. The orange fungus looked like barnacles stuck to the tree. Dead logs had brown puff balls on them. Rotten sticks were covered in pastel green cauliflower like fungus. It appears as though not much sun touches this forest floor.

At one point I had to go off-trailing due to flooding on the trail. The Little Creek was overflowing its banks onto the path. The creek was extremely calm at this point and looked as though it barely moved. It went from spanning 6 feet to 60 feet within 20 yards. Through the forest I went, getting jug by jagger bushes. I found the trail again and continued on a little farther. The next time I lost the trail in the water there was no hope of recovering it. Water had covered the bridge and the railing was just barely peaking through the water. There was a fork in the road at this point so I took the one without water.

I met back up with the Raven Rock Trail and followed it to a split. I took a steep path down to a set of stairs. They lead to the Cape Fear River. This is a massive river and it was even more massive today as it too was flooded. I lost the path again and again there was no recovery. The path lead between the river and the bottom of the cliff, so there was no chance of off-trailing. The rocks were amazing with the residual rain water running down them to form mini-waterfalls. I scampered across a fallen tree to clear a newly formed river and fell. I’m beginning to think I’m a bit clumsy. I got away with no injuries, making this a successful fall. I headed back up the stairs and hiked back to parking lot.

I lucked out with no rain, but I didn’t get a chance to try out my new rain coat.