Hiking in the Croatan National Forest

As part of a visit to greg's family we spent a couple days in Beaufort NC. We took one of the days to do a hike in the Croatan National Forest, starting in the Pine Creek parking area.

This was a nice hike on an easy path through the woods, along the beach, on walkways across swampy areas, etc. It's easy to see how this path, which is about 40km long and has a couple of places along it where you can camp, could be popular for groups wanting to practice some backpacking. Still, it was early season and we were alone through most of the hike: we just saw a few people on the beach area when we came back.

Noteworthy stuff:

• We saw some large predatory bird with a nest (and chicks) in a tree right on the water. We didn't see enough of the bird to be able to begin to ID it
• We did see a bald eagle flying over us.
• We also had lots of military planes flying over us. The very close proximity of the marine air base is not a net plus for this route.
• The shelter we passed had a pump which we managed to make work after Andrea found the instructions, but the water was "a bit" too metallic to be enjoyable. Still, having it there would make the backpacking a lot easier.
• This must be some kind of record for us in terms of the minimum number of vertical meters on a hike this long. :-)

The track:

Stats: 24.7km, ~200m up and down.