Laurel Run Park

I had always heard that wildflowers were profuse at Laurel Run Park in April, thus it was a priority to return there in the spring.  Five of us headed over to Church Hill, TN this morning to visit the park.  The wildflowers were not difficult to find; the embankment adjacent to the road into the park were carpeted with trillium, larkspur and wild phlox.  I was excited to begin taking pictures.  We parked, used the restroom, which was super clean, and hit the trail.  The creek was flowing pretty good, but I didn't think much of it.  We crossed the footbridge and were pleasantly surprised that the trail was in excellent condition with few marshy spots.  However after the first climb we headed downhill and approached the next crossing, and unfortunately, the water was too high to cross.  The rocks that are normally used to cross the stream were submerged.  Nobody really wanted to risk having to hike with wet, cold socks for the remainder of the day so we decided to return to a spur trail that said Overlook Trail.  This trail proved to be a bit of a challenge but we arrived at a nice overlook with a bench at the top of a hill that overlooked the entire valley.  We hiked back down to the parking lot and had some lunch at the picnic area.  The day had warmed nicely by then and we explored around the park before returning to Lee County.  Nice park and good day!

Dwarf Larkspur

From the Overlook

White Trillium

Warrior's Path State Park

In April of 2013, our club was founded we and had our first all girl hike this past Saturday, March 25th.  We headed out to Warrior's Path which is one place we had never hiked.  The plan was to hike Devil's Backbone and Fall Creek trails.  We were expecting to have a nice, little hike in a state park.  We found, though, that Devil's Backbone was quite the devil.  It wasn't a long climb, but it was quite steep.  And the day grew quite warm.  Needless to say, we were all a little pooped upon returning to the trailhead, but we had quite a nice hike nonetheless.  We saw a few spring wildflowers peeking out of the leaves, and Fall Creek is a beautiful stream.  It was an unusual hike with a golf course on one side, Fort Patrick Henry Lake on the other.  Once we got out on Fall Creek trail, our view was of a very nice neighborhood that sat overlooking the park.  We all coincidentally ended our day at McAllistar's, where the tea was especially refreshing after this tough little hike.