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The last time we hiked this beautiful forest was way back in
2010. At that time we were following a description in a hiking
book which visited all of the trails in the interior of the park, on both sides of Duck Pond. This past week, after perusing the latest
trails map
I realized that there were three trails that we still hadn't covered: Emmon's Trail, which begins on CR622 at the Little Swartswood
Lake boat launch and ends at Swartswood Lake; the Grist Mill Trail, a lollipop which begins on CR521 at the SW tip of Swartswood Lake;
and the Willow Crest Trail which begins and ends on Hampton Road north of Swartswood Park (you can see this section in the detail at
the top right of the map) and which skirts the bank of Willow Crest Lake. So off we headed today, driving to each trail head in turn,
hiking the trail and then driving to the next trail head.
While I prefer not to drive between trails, it was the only way to hike these trails and no trailhead is more than 10 minutes away from another. It was a very varied hike, visiting the banks of three beautiful lakes. Total distance traveled was 6.6 miles in 3 hours. (Click on the thumbnail to bring up a bigger image in a pop-up window)
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Photographs and content copyright © Dan Balogh Web design by Dan Balogh |