Moccasin Wildlife Trail and Rescued Birds

We took a much needed day off from hiking yesterday to get some household chores done.  Perhaps the most urgent chore was to get the laundry, especially those stinky hiking clothes.  Oak Mountain State Park campground not only has pull-thru, full-hook-up sites, it also has washers and dryers in the bath houses.  It’s wonderful.

Today, I was on a quest to find out where the Moccasin Trail went.  This is the trail down by Beaver Lake and I had done a short walk along this trail last week.  We started at the same point I had before, at the back of the B loop in the Campground.  I was disappointed in not seeing the great blue heron today.  The trail is easy to follow as it skirts the lake at the back of the campground.  As we began to get past the campground, the trail became increasingly more faint and the footing uneven.  It seemed hardly more than a fisherman’s path to a favorite spot.  With no indication of how long this trail is and without blazes to mark the way, with decided to turn back.

Fishermen on Beaver Lake

Gene spoke with the campground manager and he indicated that the trail pretty much circles the lake.  That would make it a couple or three miles in length which would be a very nice loop.  I was anxious to see if I could connected the dots.

After lunch we drove up to the parking lot by the dam and went exploring.  We found a path from the parking lot, but it eventually faded away and again we thought it was probably just a fisherman’s path.  Back at the dam, we looked for a way to get to the other side without walking through water.  Perhaps in dry weather, the road wouldn’t be flooded and it would be an easy walk to the other side.  Today, however, there was water flowing over the road.  It wasn’t very deep and many cars passed through, but our car is very low to the ground and we just didn’t want to do it so we don’t know whether we could have found the trail on the other side or not.

Water flowing over the road at the dam.

I may try walking the path again on Monday to see how far I can get.  Otherwise, I may just have to abandon my efforts on this trail.  Too bad, too.  It has great appeal being assessable to the campground and an easy walk along the lake.

Our next stop was the lower portion of the Treetop Nature Trail.  One of the objectives of the Alabama Wildlife Center, located in the Park, is to rehabilitate injured birds.  They do a fantastic job and many birds are returned to the wild.  However, there are birds which sustain such debilitating injuries that they can no longer survive in the wild.  These birds are cared for by the staff, friends, and volunteers of the Wildlife Center and live in huge cages along this trail.  It was sad, in a way to see these magnificent birds caged, but, on the other hand, they wouldn’t survive on their own.  Even though we didn’t do it, this trail continues up the hill and ends at the Wildlife Center building in about a half mile.

Tomorrow, we’re going to tackle some of the Yellow Trail.  We haven’t done much of it so are looking forward to something new and different.

We want to welcome our two newest followers--Teri and Hembree (2025).  We’re glad to have you both tagging along.

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