Notes
"The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark."
- John Muir
With all the times I've been to this park, I'd actually never yet run it. I knew it wasn't super big, but knew I could get in a couple miles.
Thunderstorms were rolling through the area, so I couldn't get out right away. I waited for a break & drove over. It's farther than I'm used to driving to run, but I just really wanted to try it out. Unfortunately, waiting put the start toward the end of the day & the storm that rolled through made it pretty dark on the trails. On the back, the rain came down something fierce & I was absolutely soaked. The trail never got muddy, but there was a ton of running water on it. Lightning started striking as well & while I wasn't too worried in the woods, I did think about how much water I was standing in & when I popped out in the more open area near the parking lot, made sure to get into the car fast.
It helped knowing the trail, but it's very easy to follow. It's also fairly wide & non-technical through most of it. I enjoyed the far end of it, as I don't get there as much, it gets a little more technical & narrows up a bit. A great deal of it runs along the creek edge & is definitely one of the most scenic trail routes in the area. The turn-around point is marked by posted signs, which allegedly are inaccurately put inside the park. I'm not sure exactly where the property line is, but the big ditch (that Darin broke open & rained down water on us one of the early times we were climbing there...) is around the 2 mile point. It'd probably be a really nice route route for beginners, but the size of the lot could be an issue.
As eager as I was to check out the trails, I wasn't really feeling the run. Between that, the water hiding every foot placement & the dark, I ran shockingly slow - my time should have been significantly faster, although the elevation gain as determined from the GPS track was much more than I expected.