Harbins Park Bushwhack (Gwinnett County, Georgia)

It's been a rainy weekend and I haven't gotten outside at all. After taking my mother to breakfast, and with a short break in the expected forecast, I decided to join the Meetup group for a hike at nearby Harbins Park. While I've been to this park a few times in the past, the description of today's hike indicated that we would be exploring a different part of it starting at the Baseball Complex. I was intrigued and it gave a chance to stretch my legs a bit.

With today being Mother's Day and with all of the weather, we had a group of only seven hikers today, including myself. We met at the far end of the parking area and walked a short distance on the paved trail before taking a left into the woods. At first, we were following what appeared to be old dirt roads (wagon roads perhaps), but soon they disappeared into the forest and we were bushwhacking. 

It's actually very pretty out here, but a little eerie too, as we didn't see a single squirrel, hear a single bird, or any other sign of animal life for the vast majority of the hike. Considering we were a lush, green forest with Cedar Creek passing through it, this was quite surprising. As we progressed, we had to cross the creek a couple of times, which led to wet shoes, but as our shoes were already wet on the outside from all of the moisture on the foliage, this wasn't really a problem. 

We did find a few oddities as we made our way through the woods. This included a small, cleaned carnivore skull (probably a fox) with a small bullet hole in it, a large hollowed out tree trunk still standing (my fellow hikers had pictures taken of themselves standing in it), and a couple of well shacks. I approached the door of the first well shack we found and opened the door to look in. I startled some kind of brownish-grey animal that was using it as a home. Upon opening the door it hid next to or inside a old 5-gallon bucket and I never got a good look. Based on the animals size, I think it was either a racoon or a fox.

After another creek crossing, we made our way back to the parking area and decided to call it a day. It was a bit different than our normal Sunday hikes as there was very little trail and a lot more bushwhacking than normal, but we still managed to get in right at 5.0 miles and with more rain coming, I'll have to settle for that.