hidden neighborhood gem

Yesterday Lydia wanted to walk. I didn't want to drive. So we picked Dodson Street Park in Fountain Hill. Or is that Salisbury. Who knows.

Until December I didn't even know that this park existed. As a child, Dodson Street ended with woods. Those woods extend behind the cemetery and the hospital. In the woods behind the hospital are the ruins of a holistic water cure facility in the 19th-century. Back there also is the Fountain Hill Reservoir, but the park closed decades ago. We picnicked there as kids. I broke my collarbone there.  It's been on lockdown since just after September 11th, 2001. (Really, there is a huge sign that say No Trespassing Federal Critical Infrastructure Area.)

It turns out that Dodson Street Park is a trailhead for Walking Purchase Park. I knew where Walking Purchase Park was. And the part I knew about its mostly for bikers. Bonnie and I climbed that hill a couple of times. Again, I had no idea they two were joined. Some days you should just explore the 'hood. A friend was always looking for a place to walk Vivi when they lived in town. This would have been perfect.

I was going to pick her up around noon and head out. But first I needed to download the trail map and Map My Walk ... I was headed into unfamiliar territory. I wanted to be able to get back to the car. Or the hospital. Or the river. Anywhere I knew where I was.

When you arrive at the park it looks like Athletic Fields. There is no signage that talks about trails. Oddly there are no bathrooms either. Maybe during the summer when the teams are playing they bring some in.

Because I had my trusty map I knew if we headed east toward the hospital we would find the yellow "super delight" trail.  This area was really well marked and it loops back. I'm guessing this is where parents hike while their children are playing sports. How many soccer matches can you watch in a week?

Trees had fallen in the storms this winter. The trails hadn't been cleaned up yet. However, the trails are actually very well maintained. The trees fall and they chain saw and opening in them to walk or bike thru.

It was really windy and the trees were all creeking. Actually it sounded like small animals screaming. It was not peaceful.

As we got deeper into the woods it was not as well marked as I would like, but we never got lost. We even found a painted rock that we moved elsewhere.  I said to Lydia, what does the double marker mean? She didn't know. We figured it pretty quickly. The red "Lenni" trail was meeting us. We took that trail and continued heading east. From the map I thought it looked like that is where the lookout was.

We were pretty much walking along on near the ridge line. On the red trail we started going downhill. Ut oh. That means coming back would be uphill. It started to get a lot more rocky as well. 

Finally, we found the orange "roller toaster" trail, which would take us to what I thought was the lookout. (Why do they always put orange and red together. They look alike! If it didn't have words we would have been screwed.)

We finally get to what I thought was the lookout and all you could see was Reeb Millwork. We went down a little further and the tree cover was still pretty thick. If you stare hard you can see the river. So we turned around and headed back.

Today, I found out that the lookout is actually on the red trail. It's created by the powerline.  If we would have stayed on red we would have found it. Next time. Maybe I'll bring the girls here. Or Angel's family. We'll explore together.

52-week hike challenge:  9/52 
Miles/Steps:                     3.68 miles
Bathrooms:                      none
Wildlife:                            A flock of birds, but they flew so fast I couldn't see what they were. The underside of the tails were white.
Weather:                          34°, cold, very windy. Extra:                               It was also the first big test of my phone battery strength since it was replaced a month ago.  (100% charge was lasting about 100 minutes if I took no photos.) It would always crap out about half-way thru a hike. When we returned to the car, much to my surprise, (1 hour and 37 minutes later, running Map My Walk the entire time) I was still at 89%. Whoo Hoo.