The Pilgrims were greeted by a beautiful morning to walk, clear and low 60’s, we commented that this may be similar to what we’ll experience in Spain. The group started off on the Cat Tail Pond trail and after the pond, we joined the Fossil Valley trail. We shared the trails with many other hikers as well an an organized trail run. I was very pleased to see how clean the entire trail was.
Over the course of the entire hike, as we descended into the canyons, you could feel it becoming cooler as we entered micro-climates that held the cool air and were quite shaded.
As the Fossil Valley trail ended, we rejoined the Cat Tail Pond trail for a short distance where we detoured onto the Cedar Brake trail which is the longest single trail in the preserve. This trail had much more elevation change and it was very steep in some places. Using trekking poles in these areas really paid off, on the flats…they’re just dead weight.
The Cedar Brake trail once again merged with the Cat Tail Pond trail and we were back at our starting point.
All in all, everyone held up well, we did comment that tomorrow will be interesting. I intend to be in the gym to walk the soreness off. Rick and Ann said their goodbyes but L, R and I took one more short trail, the Possumhaw trail, about .6 miles.
The area is beautiful and we’ll probably return to do it again. Next month is the Great Trinity River Forrest trail which should be very different. There are probably people in N Dallas that don’t even know this park exists or that there is this much open space in Dallas County. Very beautiful, it reminds me of stomping all over Whitney with my brother when we were kids.
Trail markers say we did about 4.2 miles plus then the additional .6 on the Possumhaw trail. Interestingly, Ann’s app was a little more accurate than my Fitbit. Almost 12,000 steps on this hike.