This Hiking Thing, part 2

Continuing to document our hiking/camping/meandering during 2017

March 5, 2017
River Park, Rock Hill, SC

Desperate to hike somewhere, for any amount of time, we looked to Rock Hill for ideas. We found River Park, which is on the Catawba River, down from the Pump House. Here is the link to the park website. The park says there are more than 3 miles of trails. We didn't see that, but we also saw no map. Looking it up now, I see that it is considered part of the Carolina Thread Trail, a connector to River Walk. It was unkept and winter-dead when we were there. We should probably give it another shot in spring, when things are blooming. There is a pretty cool boardwalk over a swamp area. And this little tributary creek:

April 1, 2017
Reedy Creek Park and Nature Center

Another local hike, this one in Charlotte. 10 miles of hiking trails, well marked. There are some cabin ruins in the park, and Native artifacts have been found there, as well. Here is a link to the Park website. We picked up sandwiches and ate at the Robinson Rockhouse. There is an enormous fallen poplar by the house, probably the biggest one we've seen.
As we hiked out, we passed a group shelter where a family speaking another language, we think Arabic, was gathering. We went on by them to the restrooms and Bob found a cellphone left in the Men's. There were texts in Arabic on it, so we took it to the group by the shelter. No one answered their shouts about the phone, but as they scrolled through photos they could recognize people! So we left the phone with them.

April 9, 2017
Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, SC

We have a fantastic place to hike pretty right in our back yard. The Greenway boasts 40 miles of trails, and they add on all the time. Here is a link to the park page. We hiked from the Recreation Complex to the old Grist Mill. It was about 4.5 miles out and back. We like the Greenway a lot, but it is all woods, with no big views, so we don't go very often.

This Hiking Thing, pt 1

So we've ramped up our pursuit of hiking opportunities in the last couple of years. This year we actually bought about $1200 worth of backpacking gear and took a one-night trip with it! It turns out we rather like our gear, but we don't see ourselves as budding through-hikers. A 4 or 5 mile limit is manifesting itself, and we really do prefer having firewood and maybe a pit toilet. We anticipate we'll do a bit of backpacking, but most likely will defer to car camping with our nice, light gear.

Hiking without gear though...that is becoming a passion. With nice poles (you don't need to spend a ton of money...ours are $50/pair...cheap by most serious hiker standards), good shoes and a day pack, we love to hit trails within a couple hours of our house.

What's becoming increasingly obvious is that  we need to DOCUMENT where we have been. When we are sitting here at home trying to decide where to go, we find ourselves debating whether we've actually been to a spot already.

So, I'm dragging out one of my (many) blank books...which are still blank because no follow-through...and I'm going to jot down our hikes/travels/camps/Airbnbs so we know where we've been, which places we'd love to return to, and which we hope never to be back to again. And I'm gonna TRY to put them here, too. With at least ONE photo.

Here is 2017, cobbled together from Facebook posts. There may be some missing if I didn't post about them on FB, but this is the best information I can draw from:

February 12, 2017
Colonel Francis Beatty Park in Union County, NC

This park is about 20 minutes from our house. Here's the link to the park page. There is not much information there about the trails..namely, the length. The nearest I can tell, the park has about 4.35 miles of trails. They are beautifully maintained and hikers share them with mountain bikes, BUT...the trails TELL YOU which direction to walk around. If you follow the signs (and if bikers do, too), you will FACE mountain bikes so you won't get run over! We loved that. Major kudos to the planners for doing that. Not everyone follows those rules, but it certainly beats other places like the Springs Close Greenway and the Whitewater Center, where everyone goes any way they want, to their peril.
Francis Beatty is a popular spots for weddings, and there are plenty of sports fields around, so it's a great multi-use spot, but hikers don't feel too crowded.

February 18. 2017
Morrow Mountain State Park, Albemarle, NC

This park is about 90 minutes from our house. It took us that long to get there, but then about 2.5 hours to get home because we decided it would be cool to drive across country, rather than hitting the highways again. The address is Albemarle, but the tiny town of Badin is right there. Here is a link to the park page. We need to go back to this park. There are about 15 miles of trails and we hit a 3.9 mile loop that was all forest. We didn't feel up to climbing that day, so we didn't hit any of the mountain trails, where a lot of the views are. Morrow Mountain is in the Uwharrie National Forest, which we haven't really explored, either. We didn't really give this park a chance. Maybe we'll backpack there. They have some primitive sites that only about 2 miles in.
In February all the foliage is gone, so it's all black and white and of course we didn't hit a trail with a view. I took one photo:

With Badin right there, and being a little town, we just couldn't resist a stop there for lunch. We had lunch at a little pizza & Chinese place. I don't remember what I had, but before we had lunch, we stopped in an antique/junk store and got into conversation with the owner. She talked up the pizza place, remarking that she didn't expect the Chinese food to go over well in their sleepy little town, but everyone was surprised! The remarkable things that stuck with us in this town were:
1. It's pronounced Bae-din, not Bah-din. And it isn't that old. The town was established in 1913 when a French aluminum company bought property on the PeeDee river and open a plant. The little houses were built (with French drains, which are still there) to accommodate the workers. The town was not incorporated until 1990.
2. Reddy Kilowatt: