Starting with 109.5 miles, 16,650 ft, ascent

Santee Rd. to NC 50, Durham

Between 1978 and 1981, the US Army Corps of Engineers built a dam of the Neuse River, creating Falls Lake. As part of that project, the Falls Lake Recreation Area was created. About 50 miles of trail were built around the lake, skirting inlets and walking the causeway. This section of the MST is all about the lake.

We started on the other side of the lake from where we ended yesterday. Friends of the MST will build a bridge at some point, but for now, we were told that we could skip the five miles around the lake and just pick up the trail at Santee Lake.

The beginning of this section was confusing. At several points, we ran out of blazes but we were now smarter and had more confidence. If we were on a trail, we stayed on it, knowing that we would see blazes at some point.

People must have left here before 1978 and they left their cabins, farms and lots of appliances and trucks. All those artifacts line the trail. The picture above is part of a home site with tobacco barn, chicken coops and other outbuildings.

The walk was punctuated by several types of birds: bluebirds in the scrub and fields, herons in the inlets and gulls on the open water. We walked in the State Park and met the chief ranger, Greg Orcutt, who was staffing the booth and showered us with maps. Once in the park, we walked past plaques which explained various types of trees. We passed the Rolling View Marina, shown above. We were heading into Wake County, toward Raleigh, a more upper crust area.

We reached NC 50 at a very respectable 3:30 P.M. We had walked 14.9 miles with 1,200 ft. of elevation.

Cumulative after day 9 - 124.4 miles, 17,850 ft, ascent