Little Mulberry Trail (Gwinnett County, Georgia)

Forever looking for new trails to explore, I stumbled across a new park not far from house while reviewing some Google maps.Little Mulberry Park is only about a 20-minute drive from my home and has a fairly extensive trail system, though it seems much of it is paved. Still, it seems like something worth checking out on a weekday morning before starting work.

After parking my jeep, I start walking on a paved trail around the eastern end of the park. While it is very urban, it's gorgeous here. The trails are well maintained and even the grassy open areas are well trimmed. I'm surprised to see a huge number of earthworms out on the pavement writhing their way across it. This isn't an uncommon site after a rain, but it's been dry for days and there are a ton of these worms. Interesting. 

Leaving the paved area and heading off into the woods, I make my way down int a small valley, at the bottom of which is a small and tranquil waterfall. The pavement starts up again nearby and I find myself heading towards Miller Lake. The lake is actually kind of pretty, as the trees reflect off of the water's surface creating an almost mirror image. I walk around the dam a short distance before doubling back, but before I do, I come face to face with a large great blue heron, who seems blissfully unaware of me only a few yards away, as he intently watches the water below his feet for lunch.

The trail, now single track and dirt once again, heads steeply uphill and cuts through the woods. There seems to be a nice mix of paved and unpaved trails in this little regional park. After a short distance though, I'm back on pavement. As I come around to a juncture with the ravine trail, I walk down to the ravine overlook, which provides a decent view of a larger cascading waterfall, though it is only a dribble at this time. Unfortunately, several large trees obscure the view and I carefully make my way down the hill a little bit until I can get a better view.

Next stop, is the "old oak tree". This tree is thought to be more than a century old and provides evidence that this hillside, now densely forested, was a pasture sometime in the recent past. Barbed wire was found in the trunk of the tree, having been grown around. It's interesting to me that in such a heavily populated area as Atlanta, the history of such a field is lost to history. I could understand this more in my previous home of Nevada, given the vast distances between settlements, but here, we are in an very urbanized area that was seized and settled by Europeans more than three hundred and fifty years ago. 

From here, I make my way back to my jeep. I was able to hike about 4.3 miles this morning and this little nearby gem of a park and now it's time to get to work. I may have to return to the trails here though, as there are several that I don't have time to explore this morning.