Raleigh recently broke ground on the Neuse River Greenway which will eventually travel from the dam at Falls Lake, south 28 miles along the Neuse to the Johnston County line. This route will connect to the Walnut Creek trail’s west end, further increasing the range of continuous greenway travel available to folks living downtown. Joe Miller has a good overview of the Neuse River Greenway project posted on his blog. I’ll be posting more about the NRG in the future.

This is an exciting time for parks and greenways in Raleigh. In the past eight months, there have been eight dedications of new trails and parks and one ground-breaking. Also – a special shout out to Vic Lebsock, this week’s Tarheel of the Week. Vic points out that he has the support of an awesome parks department, but Vic has been an important voice in the movement to connect Raleigh’s various trails. Congrats, Vic!

In my limited way, I’ve tried to piece together information to help you navigate sections of Raleigh’s greenways and find the connections between smaller sections of trail. But Joe’s not just focusing on Raleigh, he’s tackling the whole state. Armed with his GPS, he’ll be riding the trails and collecting data. If you’ve got a favorite section of trail or suggestions about data that you’d like Joe to capture, let him know.

My kids enjoyed exploring the Cotton Gin House and playing with the park’s resident “farm cats.” Apparently, the farm’s three goats are a big draw, too — they were mentioned specifically on the parks visit-evaluation form.

Here’s a link to the park’s brochure in PDF format.

(Apologies about the image quality. I forgot my camera and resorted to my phone’s camera.)

When Raleigh’s park planners started looking for a location for a recreation center in this area in northwest Raleigh, they discovered that there was little appropriate land available. Rather than leave this area “park-less”, they decided to build a new kind of park and leased 9,600 square feet in the Greystone Village Shopping Center. The spot they picked has been a drug store and a discount retail store. Now it’s the home of a rec center with an innovative indoor playground.

In addition to the playground, the Greystone Recreation Center includes a climbing wall, a large dance studio space that can be repurposed for group meetings, and two classrooms. The dance studio features a projection screen and a sound system that allows instructors to play music from personal MP3 players. Both classrooms include flat-screen TVs with Blu-ray players. The center plans to offer classes in fitness, dance and arts. Center hours are 9am-7pm Monday through Friday and 9am-3pm on Saturdays.

(Note: There was some work going on in the dance studio and the classrooms – I’ll take some additional photos at a later date!)

Programs at the Walnut Creek Wetland Center will help children and adults learn about the importance of wetlands in the water quality cycle. Students will be encourage to get outdoors and see the wetlands and wildlife habitat first-hand. The near-by Walnut Creek Trail offers some nice biking and walking opportunities with some unique views of nature in an urban setting.

John over at the Raleigh Nature blog has posted some pics of the opening dedication, as well as a audio-clip of the poem written by Raleigh poet Langston Fuze for the occasion.

Part of the NC Mountains to Sea Trail (NCMST), this section of trail hugs the southern shore of Falls Lake, traveling from the dam where the Neuse River crosses under Falls of the Neuse north to Shinleaf Park (the park that I covered in my Camping at Falls Lake post). The trail is made up of 2-3 mile sections that are easy distances for someone looking for a nice hike. My kids’ favorite section starts at Raven Ridge Road and heads back south-east toward the dam. There’s a nice area where the trail parallels a stream that runs across some exposed rocks that provides a nice opportunity for wading or looking for crawfish in warmer weather.

Last week, The News and Observer ran a story about a new section of trail completed near the Wake/Durham county line. This new trail extends to the Rollingview Recreation Area in Durham. The full NCMST trail extends ~1000 miles from the Smokey Mountains near Clingmans Dome to the Outer Banks.

If you’re hiking on this trail and find yourself dumped out on to a road, look for the white NCMST blazes to point you to the next section. It’s usually just a short walk along the road to where the trail continues back into the woods. Trail heads for the sections are marked with distances, so you know ahead of time what you’re getting yourself into.

The NCMST site has posted a Google map and topographical maps of this trail on their site.

If you’ve ever been to Honeycutt Park, you may have wondered about the seemingly pointless little stretch of paved greenway that cuts through the property and dead-ends after several hundred feet. This stretch of pavement is one of the first steps in a the Honeycutt Creek Greenway that will eventually connect the Falls Lake South Shore trail to the park at West Millbrook Middle school on Strickland and eventually to the greenway at Shelley Lake. Since this stretch of greenway has been part of  Raleigh’s Capital Area Greenway plan for a long time, it was accounted for during the building of the 540 loop. There is a tunnel that runs under 540 where Honeycutt Creek passes beneath it. This greenway will be an important pedestrian-friendly crossing of 540.

On Halloween 2009, there will be a tree planting at Honeycutt Park, sponsored by Trees Across Raleigh. Bring the whole family – coffee and snacks will be provided.

If you have kids, then you know we didn’t get much sleep, but we did have a great adventure that we hope our boys will always remember.

We stayed at Shinleaf, part of the Falls Lake State Recreation Area. Shinleaf offers about 45 hike-in camping sites that include a fire pit and a good-sized picnic table. We had a bit of trouble finding a spot for my friend’s enormous (sleeps 6!) tent, but settled on a site that was close to the lake and offered a bit of privacy. Camping is available at Shinleaf from mid-March through October. Other camps at Falls Lake offer year-round camping. One of the things that worked in our favor is that Shinleaf doesn’t charge a per-car entrance fee like some of the other Falls Lake Campgrounds.

On this warm Fall day, we had the camp pretty much to ourselves. I figure there were only about 5 sites in use. Reservations can be made up until 2 days before your visit by phone or online. Otherwise, sites are first-come. You can pick an unoccupied site, drop your tent on it and put your $18/night fee in the collection-box near the parking lot.

The camp at Shinleaf features 3 restroom buildings. The main one has showers, too. The two smaller restrooms (one of which was convenient to our camp-site) were closed. It appears that they’re only open during the busy parts of the season. Shinleaf is located a bit north of Blue Jay Point and can be accessed by the NC Moutains-to-Sea trail.

The only down-side of camping at Shinleaf is that it’s in the flight path for RDU. Thankfully, the frequency of flights drops a bit by late evening.

After doing a bit of prep for breakfast (chocolate chip pancakes!), we walked down to the lake. We were treated to a visit by one of the lakes bald eagles, out hunting for it’s breakfast.

This 236-acre Wake County park is located on the shores of Falls Lake, just off  Six Forks Road. The park offers a good balance of natural areas and outdoor play. The large playground is split into age-appropriate sections. A quick hike from the playground will take you to the lake around a short loop trail. The Blue Jay Center is home to environmental education displays and programming. A garden area and study pond are located near the front of the park. The park’s soccer and baseball fields are popular and well-maintained.

In addition to the normal car entrance, the park is accessible via the Falls Lake trail that follows the west shore of Falls Lake from the dam at the Neuse River to just north of I-85.

We typically start our visit to BJP with a hike that ends (at our kids’ insistence, of course!) at the playground. We park at the playground, then walk across the nearby soccer field and past the Blue Jay Center and pond area. The trail begins near the park’s entrance. Follow the blue blazes of the Beaver Point trail (overlapping part of the yellow-blazed Azalea Loop) toward the lake. Just before you reach the lake, you’ll notice a white-blazed trail intersecting the Beaver Point trail. This is a good spot to check out the lake before turning to the left and following the Falls Lake Trail’s white blazes. You’ll cross the blue-blazed Blue Jay Point trail (all lake-access trails in the park have blue blazes) before reaching the yellow blazes of the Laurel Loop trail. You can take the Lauren Loop in either direction to return to the playground. The full hike is probably around 2 miles. For more detail, check out the park brochure. The map is on the last page.

If you’re a more adventurous hiker, in addition to the park trails, you should check out the Falls Lake Trail. I’ll post more about this trail later. It’s part of the NC Mountains to Sea trail. Bob Steinbeiser has posted a nice map of the trail on his site that’s more up-to-date than the “official” map.

I was able to find three separate park entrances during my exploration. The primary entrance to the park is a little difficult to find. To get there, you’ll need to travel some residential roads in the Cedar Hills neighborhood. The entrance on Spring Forest is the best way to get to the lit baseball field. A new playground is located next to the main entrance on Sweetbrair. The main entrance also gives the quickest access to well-maintained tennis courts and a couple of basketball courts.

The unique feature of this park is easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. Cedar Hills is home to a “championship caliber” disc golf course. Disc golf is similar to traditional golf, but played with Frisbee-like discs. The 18-”hole” course weaves in and out of the woods around the woods circling the park and even includes a water hazard. An interactive guide to the course can be found on the Raleigh Disc Golf site.