Apr 1 Golden Club at Betty McGee Creek

 

Off Thornburg trail I spotted these in the creek and again later in the day in Hannahs Creek. It is always a treat to see them blooming.

Mar 30 What's Blooming at Caraway Creek Preserve

 

Spring beauties on Riverside trail

Field pansy

Baby blue eyes

Bloodroot

Little leaf buttercup

Common chickweed

Ground ivy

Yellow Flumewort

Hairy bittercress

Purple phlox

Spring beauties

Redbud

Bluets

Bristly buttercup

Hepatica

Cutleaf toothwort

Rue anemone 

Star chickweed

Blue violets

Yellow buckeye

Trillium cuneatum

Mar 22 FMST @ Jockeys Ridge

 

This is how the day began from our fourth floor oceanfront hotel room. We're at the Friends of the Mountain to Sea Trail annual "gathering" at Kill Devil Hills. The gathering began on Thursday evening with a reception at a local brewery. We crowded onto the rooftop deck and socialized as best we could. It was almost impossible to move there were so many of us. The next day was filled with hikes and a reception at Jennettes Pier in the evening. Friday was the actual annual meeting on at Festival Park on Roanoke Island which ended about 1pm. 

After that meeting, everyone headed over to Jockeys Ridge State Park where the terminus of the MST is located. The MST monument conceived by director Brent Laurenz is located there. After a box lunch at the visitor center, Joy Greenwood, Jockeys Ridge superintend had some remarks and then we were off to the monument. All 250 of us hiked off to the sand dunes, led by Ranger Austin Paul. I recall Austin from his time at Hanging Rock State Park.  

It was quite a scene to see 250 hikers head out and encircle the monument. A group photo was arranged and then the gathering came to a close. 

Mar 21 Nags Head Woods

 

What a gem this place is. Owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy is is one of the largest remaining maritime forests on the east coast. It is starkly different than adjacent Jockeys Ridge. Imagine the sand dunes of Jockeys Ridge covered in forest instead. That is what you have here. It is shielded from the Ocean winds and salt spray by Jockeys Ridge. The green lake above is one of many seen throughout the woods. They are rainwater fed and covered in algae. 

Unlike the maritime forest of Currituck, tall trees grow here. I feel like I'm in the Uwharrie forest, not Nags Head. As we hiked through the forest, we ran into Kevin Zorc and his wife Charlotte, Nature Conservancy employees doing some trailwork. We would run into them again on another day. Kevin pointed out some interesting things to see. 

We accessed the woods from 4 different trailheads, two of which were Nature Conservancy owned and the other two were city of Nags Head parks.  

You can see that this is a sand dune which has evolved into a mature forest. We also walked through a swamp and accessed the sound in two different areas.

One of the trails leading to the sound had an audio tour at about a dozen QR code stops. That was most informative. The very first colonial and early American inhabitants lived here on the sound side. Today, all the development is on the ocean side. The only means of access back in the day, was the sound. Boats could not land on the beach but could on the calmer waters of the sound. So, the sound was the main transportation route. The sound side is also protected from the ocean winds and salt spray. And, it has fresh water. Communities grew up in the protected maritime forests. 

In the 1920s, automobile roads were established and the communities began to die out. We didn't see much evidence of the former homes except a few bricks and metal. However, there are cemeteries hidden in the woods. The one pictured below is still maintained by a family member living nearby.

Mar 20 Currituck Banks Reserve

 

The Historic Whalehead Club is a large 21,000-square-foot home located on a remote tract facing the Currituck Sound. It is now owned by the town of Corolla. You may be able to see the Corolla lighthouse just slipping into the photo on the right. We visited it before touring the nearby Currituck Banks Reserve. Indoor photography was not permitted so I'm just including this shot of what would have been the front entrance facing the sound.

Currituck Banks was one of the three original National Estuarine Research Reserve sites dedicated by NOAA and the Division of Coastal Management in 1985. The entrance is right where Rt 12 turns from blacktop to sand. Unfortunately, the small parking area is routinely used by folks stopping to deflate tires and carpool on the sand portion. Keep that in mind when you wish to visit the reserve. There may not be a parking spot for you.

A long boardwalk leads out to the sound. Side trails lead you through a Live oak maritime forest. The reserve incorporates many ecosystems in the  965 acres of ocean beach, sand dunes, grasslands, shrub thicket, maritime forest, brackish and freshwater marshes, tidal flats, and subtidal soft bottoms. Currituck Banks Reserve is bordered by the Currituck Sound on the west and the Atlantic Ocean on the east. The Nature Conservancy and Currituck County own neighboring tracts to the north. 

The Currituck Banks Reserve is part of a barrier spit that extends approximately 70 miles from Virginia Beach to Oregon Inlet. In the Outer Banks, inlets open and close naturally due to weather and geologic events such as storms and shoaling. While there were once several inlets in the area, the last of the inlets that connected Currituck Sound to the ocean closed in 1828 due to natural shoaling. As a result, the closest inlet is 50 miles away. 

Mar 19 Pettigrew & Somerset

 

Somerset Place is a former plantation on the north shore of Lake Phelps. It was split off from Pettigrew State Park in 1969 to become a state historic site.

Lake Phelps is North Carolina's second largest lake. It is quite shallow with an average depth of only 4.5 feet. At its deepest point it is just 9 feet deep. It is considered one of the Carolina bay lakes which formed after the last glaciation. The lake is entirely fed by rainwater and is actually at a higher elevation than most of the surrounding land. Thus, with no runoff entering the lake, it is free of chemicals used in agriculture. Algonquins used the lake as far back as 8000 years ago. About 30 dugout canoes made from Cypress trees have been found in the lake. Native Americans, prior to the Woodland period, migrated in an annual circuit hunting and gathering for food. They would sink the dugout canoes to use upon their return. 

The first known European to see the lake was Josiah Phelps. He was part of a exploration group in 1755 exploring the swampy area know as the Great Dismal or Alligator Swamp. About to depart the area, a tree was climbed and the lake was spotted. Upon arrival at the lake, Phelps rushed into the water. And the name stuck.

There are a few road access spots around the lake. We stopped at one to get a nice overview of the lake. An Osprey flew overhead with a fish in its talons, still wagging its tail. 

A swimming circle at Pettigrew State Park

Josiah Collins and two partners from Edenton, bought the lake and 100,000 acres in 1785. Collins' partners gave up early and Collins began a 10 year project of draining swamp, building barns, saw and gristmills, digging canals etc, while using mostly slave labor. By 1800, the plantation was thriving with many crops and a lumber business. The above house was not built until 1830. Josiah Collins lived elsewhere leaving the plantation to be run by an overseer who lived in a smaller house nearby.  

By 1850, 200 enslaved people worked on the plantation. There were several two story, 4 room buildings which accommodated 4 slave families each. Additionally, a row of single cabins accommodated additional families. A kitchen building supplied slaves with a noon meal. Slaves were on their own for the rest of their food. Another building was designated as a hospital to care for injured slaves. A number of these building have been built using the original plans and on the original foundations.

Three generations of Collins operated the plantation until the Civil War. Josiah Jr had the manor house built. He lived on the plantation as did his son, the next owner, Josiah III. In 1862 Union troops entered the property. Many of the slaves had been hastily moved to another nearby plantation behind Confederate lines. When emancipation finally arrived, some of the slave population remained as late as 1870 while trying to regroup displaced family members. The Collins, financially ruined, left and sold the plantation. It was acquired by the state in 1939.

Nearby, the Pettigrew plantation had this quite odd manor house. It is no longer standing. We walked to it from Somerset. General J Johnson Pettigrew grew up here and is buried in the family cemetery nearby. He led a division during Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. He was wounded while crossing the Potomac during Lee's retreat and died from his injuries a few days later.

We enjoyed the large trees including this American Sycamore. There were giant Red oaks, Cypress and Atlantic Cedar as well. 

This is the party grounds of Somerset Place

One of the hand dug canals