This afternoon, I'm attempting to find possible trail routes for the Uwharrie Trail extension between High Pine Church Road and Eagle Field Rd. The North Carolina Zoo recently acquired a piece of property, the MacArthur tract, on High Pine Church Rd, allowing the trail to access this road from a land locked Forest Service property. First, I needed to locate the back corners of the zoo property. Here it is, in photo above, right along this 10 foot high fence. I understand the fence was built by a former property owner encircling an adjacent property. The purpose was to keep deer in. Specifically, a huge buck which the owner hoped to grow on his wooded land. I don't know if this is legal but he sure spent a bundle on this fence.
The Zoo property came complete with this deer stand, a large feeder and a bunker like deer blind,
Once I had established the back corners, I drove to Forest Service land on Eagle Field Rd and headed to the Zoo property. Beginning in pines, I located an upland pool but not much else. The pines gave way to open mature hardwoods. This was beautiful land along a ridge. As the ridge gave out I headed down to a creek, identified on my GPS as Walker's Creek.
The first thing I saw was this old dam next to the creek. It was about 80 feet long, 4 feet wide and perhaps 3 feet high. You could easily make out where water had been diverted from the creek to behind the dam.
Moving up away from the creek, while trying to remain on the Forest Service property, I encountered these rocks near the top of another ridge. This ridge had an old road on it which led to one of the previously located back corners. I followed a different route on the return hoping to locate something else of interest but I ended up in a lot of thickets and was glad get back into open forest.
There still needs to be some scouting done in the area to be sure we have the best route but I think this is the route we'll end up with.
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