Red Maple Trail



Red Maple Trail, Stokes State Forest (6/24/2018)

Lots has changed since we hiked this area six years ago. At that time, the beautiful Red Maple trail didn't even exist. We used Brink Road as the stick of our lollipop hike. Also, the Brink Shelter was on the eastern side of the trail, and much smaller. Today it's on the western side, built on stilts, bigger, and further off the path. Finally, the part of Brinks Road just north of Woods Road is completely impassable, swallowed by the surrounding swamp. The only thing that doesn't change in the wild is the fact that change is constant.

Like last time we parked in the eastern-most of the two lots for Tillman Ravine, but instead of walking east along Dimon Road, we headed into the forest on White and then on the Red Maple trail. We took this beautiful trail all the way to Woods Road, where we turned left and headed east. Making a right on another unmarked trail (Brink Road), we headed south, passing the new Brink Shelter off the trail to the right, before reaching Blue, and then the AT where we turned right and started climbing west. We reached the viewpoints, which were just as impressive and constant this time, before turning right on another woods road which we took north, descending back to Woods Road, this time at its western terminus. We took that all the way back to Brink Road, intending to return to the car that way. But almost immediately after turning left, we encountered an impassable trail, smack in the middle of the growing swamp. Even our plastic bag boots didn't suffice. The water would have easily come above our knees. You can see me attempting to cross wearing them. So we headed back on Woods Road to the Red Maple trail, which we took to its closest point with Brink road and entered Brink road that way. It's about a 30-second off-trail walk, and someone laid a few cairns to show the way. We took Brink road all the way back west to its nearest point with Red Maple and here we bushwacked back to the Red Maple, avoiding a walk along the narrow, and intermittently busy Dimon Road. We returned to the car via Red and then White. You can see our trail here, compared to our trail from six years ago.

Total distance hiked today was 6.2 miles in just over 3.5 hours.

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