River Place Nature Trail 2/21/2016

Posted on February 22, 2016 by Ian

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Hiking River Place with Greg and Cat

I’m trying a new format for this post because my normal way feels too structured. So I’m just going to write and see what happens. We got Greg and Cat and Sam (dog) out to hike River Place with us on Sunday and the weather turned out to be perfect. Overcast and drizzly, but in the 70s. We parked at the playground across the street and Court got in some fun prior to the hike.

We met up at the trail head a little before 10am and there were already a ton of cars there. I think the secret of this trail may be out, especially with more and more people moving here and going to the Greenbelt every weekend. But for a trail close to town, this is still hands down the best. We saw quite a few trail runners and hikers at first, but it had cleared out by the time we got to the 2nd half.

The Security Swan was there to meet us and we took off down the trail. It hasn’t rained in a couple of months so this is the lowest we’ve ever seen the water on this trail, but it was still dripping from the fern wall a little bit.

Sam loves the water, as he is a Chesapeake Bay Retriever. He likes to scout ahead on the trail and then double back to make sure we are still coming, so he probably went about twice as far as we did in the end. We did just under 7 miles, so a nice baker’s dozen for Sam. I’m sure he slept well that night.

Near the upper trail head we took a short side trail that we had never ventured up where we found this giant woodpile. Could be art?

We took a short break to catch our breath before heading back the way we came. The stairs on this trail are pretty brutal after a while and we were all pretty tired at the end. I had forgotten to pack any trail snacks, so Court and I hit up a pizza place near campus on the way home and I crushed some pepperoni rolls.

Good hike, good times. We’ll be back this spring, hopefully after some nice rain to get the waterfalls flowing really well again.