Pike Lake State Park

Pike Lake State Park is a "hole in the wall bar." The place that everyone goes too because the locals recommend it. Others, people from outside the are, would really never know it both exists and it is a cool place to be since there isn't a whole lot at the park and it's just okay looking.  

The park has five trails listed:

Lake Rim Trail — 0.4 mile

Mitchell Ridge Trail — 1.2 miles

Wildcat Hollow Nature Trail — 1.2 miles

Greenbrier Nature Trail — 0.5 mile

CCC Nature Trail — 0.5 mile

We were able to hike the CCC Nature Trail (.5 miles) and the Wildcat Hollow Nature Trail (1.2 miles). This was our first state park that when I looked at the choices of trails I picked one of the longer hikes to start with- oh how far we have come! It was really exciting to sit there with the map and say, "Psh .4 and .5 we can do that" let's hike a 1.2 miles because we can do that, "no problem!" I just want to brag on my boys and how far that we have come in building our stamina.

The trail was very overgrown, which is sometimes disappointing because for my little ones they get a face full of branches or leaves if they want to lead our little trail. I encouraged them to get excited about it even though it was overgrown because it was overgrown with FERNS! 

We are avid Cat in the Hat fans, so I told them they were about to hike through Fickle Fern Forest! 

(Which is from one of our favorite camping movies). 

The trail was very steep, I would not recommend for kids under 5, but we made it through very slowly! Steep going up, means steep going down. It is hard to see it in a picture, but I tried to show the incline of the final stairs at the end of the trail. It was a learning experience for us and provided us a chance to grow as hikers.

We saw a variety of insects on this trail and I became known as the spider web catcher. It is the mating season for spiders (fun fact) so spiders webs are plentiful and it seemed we were the first to hike this trail. A few sticks, my face and arms caught most of the webs. B helped with one or two as well. Thankfully, we were able to just move them aside onto the branches. The beginning of the trail splits into our second hike of the day and the spiders were able to rebuild the webs from when we had first hiked thru! Craziness!

Shout out to B to making sure the bridge was safe to cross, he is always looking out for us.

We found fresh acorns, yellow and green, some even still had their hats. I love learning about the different things that we experience or see while hiking and hoping the boys enjoy the information as well. Farmers Almanac helped identify these acorns from Oak Trees. In addition, "Typically, acorns “fall” around fall—in boom and bust cycles—to help plant new trees and to provide a nutritious food source for a number of critters. But when the acorns are green and dropping early, it indicates the tree is under some kind of weather-related stress." The past few days it has been extremely humid, I wonder if that is the reason?

Celebration, we found a paw paw!

I challenge you on your next hike to find 5 NEW things that you have never seen before. A new caterpillar (which if you are curious- we think we have identified our bumpy yellow friend as a: Definite Tussock Moth Caterpillar), a mushroom that is green, or a acorn that isn't brown! #hikelikeasnail and experience the journey around you. Just like we do on our #guentheradventures