Walking the Great Blue Heron Trail

Mark Twain once described golf as "a good walk spoiled". This adage came to mind as my daughter Randie and I commenced a hike of the 3.2-mile Great Blue Heron Trail off of the Haw River in central North Carolina Saturday afternoon.  The Iron Ore Belt Access to the Haw River State Par is part of a development of 692 acres that was considered for a golf course community before it was acquired by the state parks system in 2008. 

I guess Mark Twain would've appreciated the irony of that.

On the day after, I can only appreciate how stiff and achy my legs are. 

Before one gets to the official starting point of the 3.2-mile Great Blue Heron Trail, there's an entry trail from the parking lot that extends about half a mile. Once one gets to the end point of the 3.2-mile Great Blue Heron Trail, you have to walk that 1/2 mile back to the parking lot. All told, Randie and I hiked 4 miles. 

I used to walk a lot. Now, not so much. I'm terribly out of shape and out of practice walking so extensively. Jumping into a 4 mile hike may not have been my best idea. 

As we reached the marker for mile 2.5, I seriously contemplated my death there on the forest floor. I really hurt that bad. But Randie had plans to attend her high school prom that night and if I died there in the forest, it could potentially ruin her day. Not wishing to ruin her day, I stubbornly persisted. 

I reflected on the difference between will power and stubbornness. Will power is a force that drives us to succeed, that inner reserve of energy that pushes us onward to a goal, to an objective, to win. Stubbornness is being too stupid to quit, to not reach an objective but to keep going because what is the damn alternative. 

I think will power drove me for the first two miles of our hike.

Stubbornness was the engine that sputtered along to finish the hike.  

The trail itself was pleasant. It's still early enough in the spring that the trees have not begun to bloom. Branches were budding but there was no leafy canopy. But it was a pleasant environment for a slow death march nature walk. 

At the 2 mile mark, the trail reaches its apogee along the banks of the Haw River. All I ever get to see of rivers is driving over them on highway bridges. To see the river winding its way through a forest was a fascinating experience. I imagine it looked much the same a 100 years ago or more.  I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds around me, imagining a time long ago. Listening to the wind through the tree branches, the chirping of birds, the buzzing of insects, the roar of an airplane. 

Even here, miles deep into a forest miles away from the nearest city, the modern world can still find us. 

Having endured and survived (barely) this experience, I would say it was a hike that ultimately I enjoyed and would like to try again some time. And this is from a guy who is currently lurching stiffly around his Fortress of Ineptitude like an ancient mummy on the loose.