Return To Medoc Mountain

Saturday was an interesting day on several levels.  It began with getting my wife setup for a Christmas sale at a local school.  Thanks to my daughter for helping out at the sale; freeing me up to go hiking.  Woohoo!  The weather forcast for the day had snow flurries and/or rain expected for the afternoon.

Ok why would I go hiking with rain or snow in the forcast?  Well I carry foul weather gear and I will get rain while on the Appalachian Trail.  So train in realistic conditions, right?  Additionally, rain on Saturday would result in slippery leaves on the trail for Sunday.

The plan for Saturday was to walk all of the trails in the park on one day.  That’s about 11 miles.  I started at the Ranger Station and headed out on Bear Swamp Trail.  Turned right on the Dam Site Loop Trail to the bridge over Little Fishing Creek.  I caught the Discovery Loop Trail to the right and followed around to Stream Loop Trail to the picnic area. 

The next section was walking around the Bluff Loop Trail.  The first little bit of rain fell on me in this section.  Nice view from the bluff, even in the rain.  Returning back to the picnic area.  Here I picked up the other side of the Stream Loop Trail to the Discovery Trail whick leads back to the bridge over Little Fishing Creek.

Crossing the bridge brings me to Summit Loop Trail (to the top of Medoc Mountain).  Just as I reached the clearing at the top of the hill (mountain) I got my first snow flurries.  With about two miles to go and not knowing if the snow would get worse I cut my planned rest stop short and head on down the hill to pick up the rest of the Dam Site Loop Trail.  The snow had about stopped by the time I reached the connection to Bear Swamp Trail.  Bear Swamp Trail runs about .75 miles and I made it about a half mile before the snow started again.  I picked up the pace and came out of the woods across from the ranger station.  Checked my watch — hiking time for today including breaks: 4 hours 41 minutes.  Just slightly faster than 2 mph.  Next week I paln to be back at Umstead State Park.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 8th 2010 at 14:58 and is filed under Hike Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.