Two-Heel Drive, a Hiking Blog

The whole point of this hike was to stroll down the 6-mile Corridor Trail connecting the upper and lower sections of Pilot Mountain State Park and check out the Yadkin River at the far southern end. I knew I was in for 12 miles, but I never counted on hiking 15 and never getting a glimpse of the river.

The Corridor Trail near its southern end; it’s 5.5 miles from here but the whole thing is over 6.

Which is fitting, because my new hangout is less than a quarter mile from another bend in the slow-rolling Yadkin. I think the fates were punishing me for driving 30 miles and walking another 15 when I knew good and well what the river looks like. Wide, muddy, meandering, best seen from an innertube with a beer in one hand and a fishing pole in the other.

So about the trail: It starts out from the west end of the Sauratown Trail, which connects to Hanging Rock State Park 22 miles to the east. OK, so it’s 28 miles of dodging horse poop but it could be worse — at least it ain’t cows. The Corridor is a 100-yard-wide tree tunnel cutting through a countryside dominated by farms, timber and a few ranches. The trail has a decent gravel bed in most places and requires a bit of rock hopping over a few creeks (I suspect these run dry later in the year).

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So it’s back to real hiking this week: up-and-down slogs, feet slipping into creeks, sticks poking me in the face. The first three sections of the Sauratown Trail run west out of Hanging Rock State Park — notable for its 2,500-foot knobs and array of craggy rock faces — through timber, along streams, with nary a flat stretch. My GPS unit logged a generous 1,700 feet of elevation gain over 9.5 miles; I doubt it was that hilly, but this one does tiptoe into strenuous territory.

This weekend’s hike completes eight of the Sauratown Trail’s 16 sections. Sections 1-3 are clearly the best so far, with one caveat: a butt-ugly clear-cut in the middle of Section 3 (otherwise the nicest section of the eight I’ve seen). Otherwise, though, these sections have a smattering of small waterfalls and multiple chances to rock-hop across streams. Abundant forest canopy means the vistas are scant, but at least the terrain has enough variety for a decent workout.

I also found out over the weekend that the trail has a Facebook fan page, where trail volunteers have been posting updates of recent maintenance projects. Our winter from hell has been keeping them very busy. Storms wiped out a hanging bridge and left dead-falls all up and down the trail. Most have been cleared; I saw just one requiring complicated route-finding.

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Latest example of how things around here aren’t like the Bay Area: a week with no rain will not dry up the mud situation (the Winter From Hell does seem to be on its way out of town, though). I knew there was no point driving a long way to get all gunky so I did a bit more exploring Saturday at Tanglewood Park.

I ended up in Tanglewood’s far southwest corner, which is about as close to wild as it gets in this suburban park. It even has a Genuine Southern Swamp — all it lacks is a few alligators.

Last week’s post included pix of all the major attractions; this week it’s “get some blue sky in the picture and hope for the best.” The local terrain proves what I suspected all along back in the day: in pretty scenery the pictures take themselves. When the scenery’s more scant, you have to do annoying things like wait for wildlife to so something interesting and think long and hard about how to pluck the telling detail from a tangle of brambles. Work, in other words, which I strenuously avoid on weekends.

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I spent a few hours Sunday getting to know Tanglewood Park, which was the main reason we chose to buy a condo in Clemmons, a bedroom burb on Winston-Salem’s southwest edge.

We closed on the condo last week, but Melissa’s idea of move-in condition departs considerably from the sellers’ (translation: every wall needs new paint and window treatments; all rooms must be clean enough for open-heart surgery), so it’ll still be a couple more weeks till we move in. It’s true that I locked in 30-year mortgage before steeping foot in the park, but I was up for anyplace where I could take my morning walks without fighting traffic or breathing garbage truck fumes.

So about Tanglewood: The park stretches over 1,100 acres — far too many are devoted to that game best described as “the perfect way to ruin a nice walk in the country,” but it’s not all fairways and water hazards. Among its amenities: three single-track mountain biking trails; abundant stables and horse trails; lake for fishing and paddle-boating; public swimming pool; horse-racing track; campground; annual Festival of Lights holiday extravaganza; amphitheater stage for outdoor; Arboretum full of fascinating plants; circa 1859 Manor House, now a bed and breakfast.

I’d be hard pressed to believe many counties in the Carolinas have better parks than this one. It’s certainly the equal of any individual county park in the Bay Area, though every hike around here is yet more proof that most Californians have no idea how good they’ve got it, parkwise. For every nice trail around here, you guys have 12.

Sunday’s stroll came in at about 9.5 miles. I saw horses, Canada geese, a few bike riders, and a guy teaching his 4-year-old how to fish (that could’ve been a blog post all its own).
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The mud’s deep enough to bury a Buick around here, so I decided it was as a good a day as any to stroll the length of the Salem Creek Trail, a four-mile greenway that starts at a shopping center on the west side of Winston Salem and ends on the east side at Salem Lake. The trail has a lot going for it: almost entirely paved, passing through at least one construction zone, prone to flooding after strong rains, and home to a long line of utility towers.

OK, so I was being sarcastic there. Like San Jose’s Guadalupe River Trail — strategically situated beneath a busy airport’s final approach — this greenway is only here because there was no profitable way to develop the land it passes through. Power companies presumably acquired right-of-way for transmission towers along Salem Creek because it was a permanent geographical feature: not going anywhere, and not likely to be molested by marauding developers. The power towers are the scourge of the trail, I’ll admit, but there’d be no trail without ‘em, I suspect.

Such is life: so much compromise, so little free beer.

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Gambolin’ Man sent me an e-mail asking if I’d ever seen a movie set in Winston-Salem called “Goodbye Solo.” Turns out I’m such a movie geek that I had in fact seen it: the story goes like this: African cab driver meets bitter old white guy who offers to pay him $1,000 to take him to Blowing Rock in the Blue Ridge Mountains. One way. Solo is the name of the cabbie; William is his fare. Solo is convinced William plans to take one last leap off Blowing Rock, and the movie chronicles Solo’s quest to save William from himself. It’s a touching indie drama; worth a look if you’re into that sorta thing.

So Gambolin’ Man wanted the story on Blowing Rock — so named because strange wind patterns there cause the wind to blow vertically upward; it actually send snowfall in the wrong direction. Here’s a passage from the Wikipedia entry on the nearby village of Blowing Rock:

The Blowing Rock area was once fought over by the Cherokee and Catawba Native American tribes. According to legend, two lovers – one from each tribe – were walking near the rocks when the man received a notice to report to his village and go into battle. When his lover urged him to stay with her, he became so distraught that he threw himself off the blowing rock into the gorge. The woman prayed to the Great Spirit to return her lover, and the Spirit complied by sending a gust of wind which blew the man back up the cliff and landed him safely on the blowing rock itself.

This Widipedia entry describes the rock feature itself and includes a picture.

GPS coordinates are N36.117008, W81.660776. Here’s a Google map.

View Blowing Rock, North Carolina in a larger map

Sooner or later I’ll have to stop in on Blowing Rock. The storied Glen Burney Trail starts in the town of Blowing Rock, so it might be worth a visit.

Nobody asked me to document the Sauratown Trail, and I’m sure the last stragglers among my Bay Area readers wish I would move on to sexier terrain, but I feel like this stretch of dirt deserves bloggage. The trail itself is so-so, but the effort that went into getting it built is something else. As I mentioned last time, local hikers and horse riders just made up their mind to do it, then did it.

I doubt these posts will inspire any decisions to explore the Sauratown Trail or die trying. Then again, maybe a few will stop by and think “hey, they built their own trail, why can’t we?” That’d be cool with me.

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Good trail, great idea: Seems some local hikers and horse people decided there was no good reason not to have a trail connecting Pilot Mountain and Hanging Rock state parks, which are, after all, a mere dozen miles apart as the crow flies. So they contacted a bunch of property owners and talked ‘em into allowing a trail cutting through their lands.

They created the Sauratown Trails Association in 1988 and started digging. Today there’s a 22-mile trail connecting the two state parks; total mileage is around 35, counting the various loop trails. They’ve done an impressive job from what I’ve seen — nice grading, good signage, enough blazes to keep you on your way, a trail map and guide for each of the trail’s 16 sections.

I’ll grant you that a trail crossing private landowners’ pastures and timber is not exactly wilderness, and there’s not exactly a surplus of scenic splendor in the lands between the two state parks. You cross a bunch of country roads, you hear a lot of traffic near the busier routes, you could forget your camera with no regrets. The remarkable thing is that they built it anyway, a clear example of not letting a shortage of greatness get in the way of doing some good.
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I told a guy on the trail that I always try to get out for a New Year’s Day hike, though the facts don’t back me up: Just two First Day hikes in the past five (2007 and 2005 if you’re curious). With any luck I’ll stay in a better groove in years to come, assuming no ice storms or swine flu epidemics ground me.

Salem Lake, looking eastward

Salem Lake Park felt like a good place to walk in the new year. Salem Lake Trail is 6.9 mostly flat miles around the lake’s shoreline. Salem Lake supplies some of the city’s drinking water, which means the city has a vested interest in keeping the place ship-shape.

Hiking purists might look askance at the trail — it’s wide enough for a bulldozer, welcomes bike riders and has a difficulty rating of 2 on a 10 scale — but anybody who enjoys a pleasant lakeside stroll will swallow their objections after a couple miles.

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Three weeks of gross lassitude and all-around laziness ended Sunday with a seven-mile hike at Pilot Mountain State Park (site of my first-ever North Carolina hike.)

Pilot Mountain two days after the Blizzard of ‘09 blew through. Most of the snow’s gone now.

I was so out of shape that I skipped Pilot Mountain’s main attraction — the Big Pinnacle, which from a distance looks uncannily similar to a Big Nipple — and concentrated on a moderate loop along the Grassy Ridge Trail, Mountain Trail and Grindstone Trail.

It’s mostly standard walking-in-the-woods fare without much eye candy, but when I’ve sat on my fanny for most of a month, my cranky bones need a gentle reintroduction. Hiking to be hiking, for sure, but hey, they’re my feet. I’ll punish ‘em as I choose.
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