Uwharrie National Forrest Anniversary Excursion: Marrow Mountain State Park

This year for our anniversary my wonderful wife planned an excursion to the Uwharrie National Forrest. It is an awesome place to go for hikes. On the other side of the lake from it also lies Marrow Mountain State Park. Both are very picturesque. When we got into the area we stopped at the ranger station and grabbed some maps. We then checked in to our hotel and ran up to Marrow Mountain State park to check it out and get a small hike in before we lost the light. We started at the top. There is a small trail that circles the top of the mountain.

The first thing you notice is the epic views. As you get onto the trail we also noticed that they had done some controlled burning in the recent past.

This ment that there was next to no undergrowth to speak of and you could see a long way down the mountain under the trees. Definitely a unique experience. As we made our way around the loop we were treated to more beautiful views in all directions.

Having circled the top of the mountain, we decided to drive through the park and visit the bottom of the mountain. Morrow Mt. State park is on the west side of Lake Tillery (part of the Pee Dee River). It is a beautiful setting right along side the lake and we realized that you could rent canoes and the like. Not to mention the first of the many Great Blue Herons we saw was perched on a dead tree about 50 yards away. It was kind enough to wait for me to get my 300mm lens out and start snapping before it flew way.

It was the perfect way to start the trip. We decided at that point that we would come back the next day and go on a “moderate level” (there were Easy, Moderate, and Hard) 5 mile.

The hike started off right were we parked the day before at the bottom of the mountain and it took us on a leisurely stroll along the lake shore. The sky was perfect and the weather was awesome. The views of the lake were fantastic.

We even got to say hello to one of the residents on the trail. Mr. Box Turtle didn’t want to be disturbed.

We took an off shoot of the trail all the way to the dam between Lake Tillery and Badin Lake.

We found out later that we had gone onto a part of the trail that was decommissioned… Ooops.

After we saw the dam, we turned inland and that is where that easy hike took a huge turn… Straight up a mountain… like waaaaay up. And to make matters worse, when get got to the top there was this couple with twins and a double backpack for them… The guy had carried them all the way up. He wasn’t a big guy and he didn’t even look winded. I was soaked totally through my shirt and huffing and puffing and all I was carrying was a camera backpack with the gear… I mean, it was heavy by that point, but not two-children-in-a-backpack-carrier heavy.

Any how, if that was moderate then I don’t even want to think about how hard the difficult trails were (prolly need climbing gear or something, haha.) Despite the difficulty of the hike it was still an awesome day and the dip in the hotel pool when we got back to the room was a perfect way to end it.

The next post will be from some of the hiking we did in the actual Uwharrie.