It appears the fall schedule of hiking has arrived. We had all donned jackets at the beginning of the hike. I believe it was in the 40's when we departed the trailhead. It felt like fall had truly arrived. Most of this hike I had not been on previously. I did pre-hike the first half of this hike on Friday because I could not find a trailhead on the Signal Mountain trails map. Betsy was nice enough to accompany me on the pre-hike. It turned out the trailhead is unmarked just north of Middle Creek on Edwards Point road. Just about all of this hike is in Pentice Cooper Park, which explains the fact that it is poorly blazed. You really need Alltrails on your phone or a GPS to know where you are on the first mile or so of the trails leading to the Orange/Yellow Trail. One plus which helps, is the first mile or so of the trail follows Middle Creek. So if you think you have wandered too far off trail, if you make your way over to the creek, you probably will run into the trail that leads up to the Orange Trail or the Orange/Yellow Trail. From this point on, the trails are sort of blazed well enough to make your way up to the Blue Loop Trail. As I said, the first mile or so of the hike, follows Middle Creek and is rocky and cris-crosses other trails that rock climbers have established as they made their way to climb the nearby bluffs.
So about a mile of
following Middle Creek, we got on the Orange Trail and headed north until we got on the Orange/Yellow Trail
where we continued hiking north toward
the Blue Loop Trail. We crossed Edwards Point Road and reached the Blue
Loop Trail. We hiked counter clockwise
on the Blue Loop Trail and made our way to where we had staged vehicles at Shackleford Ridge Park.
Three of the four hikers decided at this point that 6+ miles of this hike was
enough for the day. So we called it a day and Betsy went on to hike some more.
I would rate this a
moderately difficult hike. It was a great fall hike and would make a greater hike when done when the forests
have reached their peak colors later in the
fall.
If you would like to see some photos taken during this hike, click here.
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