Turkey Oak Trail Hike - Friday - September 9, 2011

RV-Dreams - Carolina Clan,    Day 2 - Part 2

Click any photo to enlarge

Back at our campsite, we ate some breakfast and gathered our hiking gear.  At 9am we had a group ready, willing and I think able to hike the 4.5 mile Turkey Oak Trail ;o))   

We decided to drive to the trailhead.  Hiking to the trailhead would have turned the 4.5 mile hike into a 10 mile hike ;o((Walking distance from the red dots (campground) to the blue dots (trailhead) is 5.5 miles round trip.

Below is the Turkey Oak Trail map.We were hiking the long loop (white) which started at the blue dots on the map and went as far as the tail of Lake Juniper before heading back to the start.

If you enlarge the picture below, you can read a great explanation of the hike and the environment. Basically, Cheraw State Park has a mission to try and restore the longleaf pine ecosystem and encourage the recovery of species dependent on that environment. The anchor species for Cheraw State Park is the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker. 

Before we headed down the trail, Steve asked the group to gather for a picture.  Steve told us to get close together and smile…

 Oh... this is going to be a FUN hike :o))

Now that we got that out of our system, we managed to behave for the flip-side of that photo.Thanks Steve for sending us those 2 photos!!

Just one more so you know Steve was there;o))

Off we went with Steve and his three trusted dogs leading the way….

As you can imagine with this many people and three dogs, we probably were not going to see any wildlife.  But, nobody cared…  We were in a beautiful environment and just enjoyed walking and talking.

We saw some unusual mushrooms along the trail. Don’t know the names of any of these but thought they looked cool!!

How about a fried egg mushroom?!?!

This one looks like Saturn with its rings?!?!

Doesn’t this look like a “wood” flower? 

It was left on the branch when the longleaf pine cone fell to the ground.

About two miles or so into the hike, Bruce and Dan mentioned that they hadn’t seen any white trail markers for some time... Uh Oh ;o(( The trail was getting more difficult to walk and it appeared that no one had been through here in while.

The decision was made to backtrack until we found a marker.  Sure enough, we made a bad right turn earlier.  That’s what happens when you are walking and talking and enjoying each others company ;o)) Good thing we drove to the trail head as our 4.5 mile hike had just been extended to about 6 miles!!

We got back on the trail and finally reached the Lake Juniper Scenic Outlook. Hmmm… I always called them Lookouts?!?! 

It was a beautiful spot deep in the Cypress Trees.

 

The temperature was rising and the dogs found a great way to cool off.

Refreshed and ready to go!!

After a short rest at the scenic outlook…we started back toward the trailhead.  We came across this tree with a split trunk and thought if someone would get inside it would make a great photo.  Dan gave it a shot, but did not fit ;o((  So we got Tricia looking through the split trunk ;o))

 

This hike really is about the longleaf pines.  

How about these two pines…

It looks like they are hugging.

Perhaps that’s their baby longleaf in the foreground ;o))

Time for a little break!!

 Even the puppies were glad to rest. 

Moving on down the trail, we came upon this sign…

Boy did the pace pick up ;o))Doodlebug was hurrying Steve to the finish!!