I thought the Winter Solstice might be a good time to pay a visit to my favorite place for a walk in the woods, Croft State Park. I know I was a day early, but, close enough!

The good news is that the bridge across the Fairforest Creek, that was washed out some years ago, is back!

(as usual, click on the pictures for a full-resolution version) You can now cross the creek between the north and south part of the park (unless you have 4 feet):

With the bridge there, I decided to take a walk around the Southside Loop Trail.

Contrary to the assertion of a friend, the Fairforest Creek is not a “babbling brook”. It was quite coherent and I understood its every word.

This old tree looks like it’s been a buffet for woodpeckers.

I came across this apparently late-blooming plant. The thin pink leaves caught my eye, and the round leaf with markings that look amazingly like “survey marker do not remove” probably gives this plant a survival advantage in areas frequented by humans.

Actually, there were a number of these in areas that looked like work had been going on. I know they’ve been trying to clear any Dangerous Things left over from when this was a World War II training base. In the meantime, stick to the trails and keep your eyes open.

As is usual for Croft, the trails on the south side are well marked. Um…. yeah, I think I should go THAT way.

I’m not sure what caused this tree to grow a gall like this, must have been pretty irritating:

Along the trail I saw arrows pointing to the side, but no other markings. That little spur lead to the power line right-of-way and I figured that’s all that was. Oh wait, maybe that was the detour!

In some areas the trail gets a bit vague, but if you look farther ahead with a wider view you can make it out:

It’s a bit jarring when the trail suddenly gets hard and gray and Reeeally Wide:

but just past that point it’s all back to a normal, comfortable forest trail:

I took a side helping of Fern Gully Trail. I found the Fern Gully:

Which was also a good place to pause and lighten my backpack. N.B. lightning the backpack doesn’t necessarily lighten the total gross weight, it just moves the center of gravity a bit.

The south side trails are frequented by mountain bikers. I imaging this would give them pause:

The other side of that log had some rocks piled up to form a bit of a ramp, so I guess the bikers usually go around clockwise, while being my usual odd-ball self I was going counter-clockwise.

All-in-all a good day. The NWS was putting out special weather statements all day about sleet being mixed with the light rain across the area, but that all stayed south of the park and I just heard some light rain falling a few times.

Route on Strava, which also took in the Fairforest Loop Trail as I wasn’t quite ready to leave the forest after completing the Southside Loop Trail.

I awoke this morning to a thick fog over the lake and through the trees, and thought “What a great time for walk in the woods!”. The nearby Lake Rabon Park has a small network of trails in the woods, so off I went.

Not much to see from the top of the dam (picture taken from behind the fence with the “nobody allowed on dam” sign).

With the recent rains, there was a pretty good flow through the lake overflow and into the creek below.

Nothing coming over the spillway though. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the water high enough to hit the spillway.

A nice quiet walk along the creek.

Some of the trails involve some climbing.

I was coming to the bridge when a Great Blue Heron flew by, giving me a good look. She landed a bit downstream, where the stream under the bridge meets the Rabon Creek.

I’m pretty sure I saw a Pileated Woodpecker too. No chance for a picture, and I only saw him for a second, but a large black bird with a flash of red narrowed it down.

I wonder if some of these rocks would stil be there if not for the trees (which came first?).

Not all the trails are as nice as the ones above, some are paved.