Scotts Run Nature Preserve was a hiking area that Ed found on the Internet. It has been tough, since we left the abundant hiking of Northern California, to fine neat places to hike.
This one has some pros and cons. Here is what we think they are:
Pros:
Beautiful trail - pretty well maintained.
Variety of trail surfaces - some older, wide trail(probably fire roads, some more narrow single track trail too, which makes for interesting hiking.
Lots of small challenges, like fallen trees to step or sometimes have to climb over, some to climb under.
Creek crossings with neat stepping "stones" built in - lots of fun to jump across.
Heavily wooded - nice to spot hawks flying across the trail ahead. Also great to find little camouflaged toads.
Cons:
It is an Eastern forest - very damp and can be muddy and slick on the trail. (But lots of ferns and verdant beauty.)
Lots of bugs and humidity.
Extremely close to civilization - a whole lot of traffic noise from nearby busy highway and freeway.
Whole preserve is in the flight path for National airport and also very close to Langley, VA, home of the CIA I think. Low flying dark helicopter was so loud.
Lots of hikers and kids in the first mile, some with dogs, many not speaking English. But, friendly atmosphere.
Can you make out the ravine that Ed is crossing on the log bridge? Kind of overexposed, but this was a really fun trail with this kind of challenge.
