Brumley Forest Grand Opening

For Earth Day, Amanda and I took Alex to the grand opening of Brumley Nature Preserve, Triangle Land Conservancy's newest preserve.  So many people came out, they had parking in the powerline right-of-way as the parking lots could not handle so many visitors.  A number of sponsors had booths set up, but Alex was anxious to go hiking so we first did a loop around Wood Duck Way.  Near the actual parking lot, we saw an old car that had been completely filled with rocks.

I don't think anyone's going to get away in this car!  After that we got on Springhouse Loop and did a short loop around Grand Oak Loop.  We continued on Springhouse Loop towards the pond and took Flat Tail Trail.  A beaver dam was visible along the creek here.

As we got to the pond, I spotted a beaver lodge, but no beavers.  We did see a family of Canada geese with goslings swimming in the pond.

There was a nice picnic area where we stopped for a snack and to let Alex have a drink and the pond is quite scenic.

Then we followed the powerline clearing and took Running Cedar Trail.  At the end, we did a loop around the manor, but the path to the ruins was closed.  So we took Buckeye Loop for a short ways, but Alex was getting hot so we didn't finish the loop.  Back at the main area, we got some tacos from the Bandidos food truck and some beer from Fullsteam and ate lunch in a shady spot.  We even got Alex a small cup of ice cream to cool off.

It was a really nice opening and we're looking forward to exploring this great new park again soon.