Watching the River Run...

Remember the Loggins and Messina tune, "Watching the River Run?" I couldn't get it out of my head yesterday. Here's why:

This week’s trail led us along the Eno River near Durham. This lush and lovely river was once the home to Native Americans of the Eno, Shakori, and Occoneechee tribes before European settlers arrived. In the 1700s, these three tribes merged and set up a village near present-day Durham.  When the settlers arrived, they established farms and mills along the river.

In 1972 the Eno River State Park was established.  We entered the eastern end of the park off Cole Mill Road where there are six trails totaling just shy of ten miles.  We chose the Cole Mill Trail, a 1.2 mile loop, and extended our hike with the Bobbitt Hole Trail for an additional 1.65 mile loop.

This is by far my favorite trail to date.  We start off with a well-packed level trail that gradually becomes more rustic as we descend to the river.  Both of these trails are marked “Moderate.”  Easy to see why.  You must carefully pick your way over roots, around stumps and occasionally under downed branches. This is good for many reasons, chief among them the fact that you don’t see as many joggers on a trail this rugged.  I’m all for people getting in their exercise, but when I’m out in the woods, I like to be as alone as possible. Popular paved jogging tracks are not for me, no matter how beautiful the lake it encircles.

Here we encountered no such crowds. It was quite easy to get into my Pocahontas mode and imagine the spirits that inhabited this area.

We’d had a hard rain the day before, so the path along the river was quite muddy. We had to carefully place our feet in some portions or risk “skating” down the hill to the water. That made it even more of an adventure.

A treat I hadn’t expected were the laurels. With most of the Spring blossoms long since faded here, I expected only green. The laurels were vibrant with their white and pink blossoms all along the bluffs beside the river.

The Bobbitt Hole extension (I insisted on calling it Hobbit Hole; much more fun!) took us farther along the river. The deeper into the woods we hiked, the faster the river seemed to run, crashing at times over rocks and boulders along the way.  There are several wooden foot bridges to get you across the little creeks that run toward the river on the trail. And there were a few mud puddles to negotiate as well.

If I have one criticism of these trails, it’s that they weren’t always clearly marked.  I like that they blaze the color on the trees.  That seems kinder than the metal markers we’ve seen nailed into the bark on other trails.  But we could have used a few arrows pointing the way from time to time. We didn’t get lost, but we did wonder about it now and then.

There are many other trails to explore in this State Park. We will definitely be back to sample more of them.

Hope all your Trails are Happy!