Trip to Fall Creek Falls

So, weekend before last I went to Fall Creeks Falls with Blair. The main purpose was to see lots of cool wildflowers, with a secondary goal of getting in a good hike. Both goals were achieved with minimal injury (I ended up with two ticks, ewwwww).

In our search for wildflowers, we followed the recommendation from the park ranger-types and headed to Crusher Hole and Camps Branch. These are a couple of adjunct properties to the park, maybe a 15 minute drive from the main property. First up was Crusher Hole. I'm not sure we actually ever got to "Crusher Hole" itself. It turns out this place is up a small dirt road. The Civic did pretty well until the road turned a hairpin going up at a 45 degree angle with a rock jutting out from the top. Needless to say, after losing a little rubber spinning the tire, and some expert direction from Blair, we turned around and parked the car a little further down. Many many wildflowers to be seen. Most of them I had never seen before, never having really been out in the mountains in the spring. A selection of a few cool ones:

Wild columbine:

From Fall Creek Falls Wildflowers - 2010-04-17

Prairie trillium:

From Fall Creek Falls Wildflowers - 2010-04-17

Long spurred violet:

From Fall Creek Falls Wildflowers - 2010-04-17

From Crusher Hole we backtracked a bit and hit Camps Branch. This was more like an easy hike. The trail ran along an old riverbed. We didn't see too many new flowers. However, there were a ton of dwarf crested irises like this one:

From Fall Creek Falls Wildflowers - 2010-04-17

Anyway, you can check out the whole album. I think I might go back on some of these and crop in a bit closer around the flowers. I suspect most folks aren't going to be looking at these on huge monitors. Then again, I suspect most folks won't be looking at these in the first place.

See the next post for pictures from the hike.