Well, it was more casual strolling than hiking, but both of these are places you shouldn’t miss. Although it was only the 4th of October, it was 42 degrees at Cranberry Glades Botanical Area, and there were a few snow flurries. So the weather there can be quite different from the weather elsewhere.

Which means I was wishing that I had worn much warmer pants.

Location: Falls of Hills Creek and Cranberry Glades Botanical Area
Trails: Cranberry Glades Botanical Area & the Falls of Hills Creek
Distance: Cranberry Glades Botanical Area: 0.6 mile; Falls of Hills Creek: 1.3 miles
Elevation: Falls of Hills Creek: 367 feet

Cranberry Glades Botanical Area

The Cranberry Glades Botanical Area is a flat boardwalk, so it is accessible to everyone. Although it is only a 0.6 mile loop, there is incredible biological diversity in that small area.

Yup. Snow.

Cranberry Wilderness Area

This area was in an area not in the boardwalk, but similar botanically, and the light was a lot better.

The Falls of Hills Creek

The upper falls are accessibly by a gently sloping path. They were also kinda boring without much water going through the area.

The rest of the path was a lot of stairs. But utterly worth the hike.

The Middle Falls

The Lower Falls

The stairs are quite steep in places.

Cranberry Glades Botanical Area GPS map
Falls of Hills Creek GPS map

Friday we hiked up Seneca Rocks, in memory of my cousin Ben.

We hiked to the top without stopping, because that’s what Ben would have done. One the way down, however, I stopped many times for pictures.

Location: Seneca Rocks
Distance:4.4 miles
Elevation: 1092 feet

Most of the above pictures were taken from the viewing platform (noted with red arrow below), or several feet above. Because of COURSE I went past the STOP HERE DO NOT GO FURTHER sign.

The hike started approximately from where the next two pictures were taken, and then went up to the viewing platform (and just past).

Seneca Rocks at sunset:

Seneca Rocks mid-day:

Seneca Rocks Hike (gps map)

As I said, pretty much as soon as we get back to the car, the sun came out, and the day was beautiful from there on out.

And from these pictures, you can see why we wanted to hike Dolly Sods in the first place.

We took Thursday and Friday off, and traveled south. Thursday, we hiked Dolly Sods, which ended up being far less pleasant that it sounds, because 1) it rained for about 3/4 of the hike 2) it’s been raining for most of May and 3) about 2/3 of the way through our hike, the trail went through a swamp. And it’s been raining a lot.

Location: Dolly Sods National Wilderness Area
Trails: Blackbird Knob Trail, Upper Red Creek Trail, Dobbin Grade Trail (swamp), Beaver Dam Trail, and then Forest Road 75 back to the Blackbird Knob Trailhead)
Distance: 6.7 miles
Elevation: 838 feet

Here is what part of the non-swamp portion of the trail–the Upper Red Creek Trail–looked like:

Here’s another view of the Upper Red Creek Trail area. Yes, it was raining. And raining. And raining.

This is part of the Blackbird Trail, and approximately where we made the mistake of turning onto the Upper Red Creek Trail. Which would eventually lead us into the swamp.

I admit that even in the rain the Blackbird Trail was beautiful.

Here are the remains of the swamp I took out with me.

Dolly Sods Trails Hike (gps map)

After we finished our hike? The rain stopped, the skies cleared, and it was beautiful.