Piney River Pocket Wilderness

A great day run on an excellent, maintained trail with very little climbing.

A few creek crossings, more with recent rains.

Challenging boulders.

Our family of five did this trail out and back in about 3.5 hours. We had a picnic at the first bridge we came to. The kids are 9, 11, 13, all are fit, so they did well with little complaining. Lot's of, "What? How did they get all this lumber, steel and cables all the way in here!"

Along the way, there is a cool swinging bridge over an excellent wide, shallow, slow-moving creek. Tthere are many creeks that run from the hills to cross. Some of them with long stepped waterfalls. One, a challenging, bouldering, wet crossing got a foot soaked enough to need to squeeze the sock out. At the bridge, the kids set up their hammocks and chilled out for lunch. I was told by an experienced hiker/photographer, that in April, she counted 40 species of wildflowers in this 3-mile stretch of trail!

Many wildflowers in spring.