Father’s Day Hiking

For Father’s Day, we decided to get out and go for a hike. My son used to love being in the child carrier when we’d go hiking at the Jacksonville Arboretum & Gardens so we decided to give my daughter a go at it. We went to Raven Rock State Park, which s about 45 minutes from us. She loved it and we all had a great time.

Trail Description

Raven Rock Loop Trail is a tree-lined loop trail that follows Little Creek through mountain laurel, hardwoods and majestic pines. Then it breaks away to follow 135 steps in one mile, leading down to Raven Rock along the Cape Fear River. Unfortunately, you now have go back up those 135 steps, which is extra fun wearing a baby on your back. About half a mile further down the trail is the Overlook. It’s a view of the Cape Fear River from 350 feet above the water. Here you have an opportunity to see bald eagles, osprey, turtles, vultures, beautiful sunsets and a panoramic view of all the changing seasons. It is another .75 miles of hiking back to the parking lot.

Things to See

It costs $12.00 to camp overnight at Raven Rock. There are no water facilities near the sites, so even water has to be backpacked in. This may be a good opportunity for my son and I to go spend a night and look at a meteor shower if we can time it with the weather.

The Overlook is a pretty spectacular view in consideration of the fact that we’re not in a particularly mountainous area. The Blue Ridge mountains are a few hours west of us and this probably wouldn’t be all that impressive over there. We’re on the edge between the Piedmont and the coastal plains here. There just isn’t much in the way of mountains close to us. Our hiking here is somewhat limited to hills. There aren’t even slight hills at Harris Lake County Park, for example.

We spoke with a photographer who said this is one of the better places in the area for fall leaves. He also said that it gets really packed so you end up parking down the road and hike in to the trailhead. We might try this on a weekday morning as the leaves start to change and see if it’s doable. The ride isn’t too bad, but a couple hours is a pretty significant amount of time to waste if you can’t hike.

Summary

In general, we thought it was a great park and the experience was fantastic. We learned that we can continue to hike with the baby in a backpack and that’s encouraging. I’m not sure we’d go back to Raven Rock until after the summer heat ends. We’ll definitely find ourselves hiking here again in the future.