Blue and White, The Same Only Different

We were back out there hiking again today.  That makes three days in a row.  Woo-hoo.  After a summer of sitting, it feels so good to be getting back into hiking shape again.

The White Trail is wide and flat as it leaves the Peavine Falls parking lot.

Today, we did the Blue Trail and connected with the Orange Trail to the White Trail.  That sounds exactly like what we did on Tuesday except today we started at the Peavine Falls Trailhead at the south end of the park.  We hiked along the Blue Trail to the Orange connector.  We hiked the White Trail from the Orange Connector back to the Peavine parking lot for a 7.7 mile hike.  We have now hiked all of both the Blue and White trails.

This looks like a good spot for our morning break.

What we did today was much easier than what we had done on Tuesday.  The climb up to the ridge from Peavine Falls on the Blue trail was much more gradual, plus it was 300 feet less in elevation gain.  Likewise, coming off the ridge on the White trail was much shorter and less steep than on the north end of the trail.  We’d rate this as a moderate hike.

Long leaf pine starts out with a grass-like phase.  It does grow tall, but
concentrates on making it stem thicker and developing a taproot.

The Peavine parking lot is at the end of a narrow, steep, curvy road.  I wasn’t thrilled with that, but luckily we only met one car as we were going up.  The parking lot is huge.  Peavine Falls is a popular place and is only a half mile walk from the parking lot.  There is a port-a-potty and a picnic pavilion, but no changing room.  Three trails lead from this parking lot--the Green, White, and Blue.  Actually, you follow the White to connect with the Blue at the falls.

We aren't sure what this red bush is.  It looks a little like
low bush blueberry.

As we walked by the falls this morning, we kept glancing over from different vantage points, but had no better views then we did the other day.  There were two different trails that lead down to the base of the falls, but there were signs everywhere warning of the hazardous conditions.  We decided to leave all that to those younger and braver.

There's still a few leaves out there, but precious few.

Although other trails were in close proximity, this hike seemed much more remote than the others we’ve done in this park.  Perhaps it was because it was a cloudy day and we saw no one else on the trail.  Of these two trails, I found the White trail to be much more interesting to hike.  I liked the narrow ridge top section of the White trail better than the ridge walk on the Blue trail and I especially liked the last couple miles of the White trail as it followed alongside Peavine Branch.

Tomorrow we’re going to take a day off from hiking.  I’ve been asked to write a few hike descriptions for the campground and I need to get that done before I forget what I did.  This little project came about sorta as a result of our electrical failure.  When the guys were here working on our electricity, Gene gave each of them one of our cards which has our names and blog address.  One of those cards got into the hands of the campground manager, he read the blog, like the trail descriptions I had written, and asked if I would be interested in writing up a few hikes.  What he has in mind is to have a list of hikes with short descriptions that can be handed out to campers who inquire about hiking.   Anyway, when I said I’d be willing to do that, he consulted the park superintendent who also liked the idea--liked it so much he offered us two weeks of free camping.  We couldn’t believe it.  That is so generous.  Thank you very much.

That’s it for today.  Thanks for tagging along.