This week’s trail was at Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve in Cary. Although the Appalachian Mountains are about 200 miles away, the same vegetation exists here. It is believed that the north- facing bluffs support that plant-life that thrived here more than 10,000 years ago during the last glacial period.
There are several short trails in the Preserve. We walked two of them totaling two miles.
We started with the Chestnut Oak Loop Trail. This is a 1.2 mile circuit through dense woods. The path is clearly established with two by fours marking the sides during a lot of it. Mulch is laid on the trail so that you are rarely walking on the actual earth. This might make it easier for some, but I prefer the dirt beneath my shoes.
Still, it’s a lovely loop with many trees and lush vegetation. At this time of the year, it’s almost completely green. We saw a few white flowers on some bushes, but the spring blossoms are just about finished. We walked fairly leisurely, stopping a few times to observe the bluffs and take some pictures. We finished in about 30 minutes. The walk was easy except for a few incline areas that made us puff a bit.
Next we took the Swift Creek Nature Trail, which measures .8 mile. The star of this trail is the Eastern Hemlock, a tree that usually grows only in the mountains. Hemlock Bluffs is the only other place in North Carolina that you see this tree grown naturally.
This trail dips steeply to meander beside Swift Creek. Most of it is on a boardwalk. This makes the walking easy, but the climb back to the starting level can be strenuous. When we got back to the top, we understood why there were benches along the way.
From the literature that accompanies the markers, we learned about a ground cover plant with heart-shaped leaves called – wait for it – Heartleaf! It’s really pretty, and we were able to spot it easily.
Then we came to the section called “A Gap in the Canopy.” This is the only place on the trail that we saw blue sky above us. This break in the canopy was created by Hurricane Fran in 1996. Enough trees fell to create a slightly different environment. You can expect to find birds and a few harmless snakes that are not present in the rest of the area. (We didn't see any snakes; you probably would have heard me scream).
The steep climb back to the top is killer on thighs that aren’t regularly acquainted with a Stairmaster, but we survived it. We didn’t even have to stop and sit! This loop also took about 30 minutes. We stopped more often on this part and took more pictures. We might have stayed even longer on this trail, but while we were at the bottom of the bluff along the creek, we were providing free lunch to a platoon of mosquitoes. We weren't feeling generous enough to hang around down there. Later in the day we bought Deep Woods Off to add to our bag. We'll let you know how it works.
Even though we had a warm Spring day, the shade of the canopy made us comfortably cool. I can’t wait to see this one again in the fall with changing leaves.
Where did you walk today? We hope you had Happy Trails.
