点评:We reached this area down a long gravel road and it felt pretty remote although we did see a handful of people at each of the trailheads we visited. We were fortunate to have a sunny day and the trails we chose were shady with creeks and plenty of interesting rock formations.
From the Natural Bridge Trailhead, we made our way downhill, carefully navigating the stone staircase created by the CCC in the 1930s. I didn’t count but from looking at my photos it appears to have at least 30 steps. At the bottom of the stairs was a rock overhang and then trails heading right (to Devil’s Backbone) and left (to Natural Bridge). We took the yellow blaze trail to the left and shortly encountered a water crossing that we were not dressed to wade through so we turned around and went back the way we came. We spent about 45 minutes at this trail – even though we didn’t go very far and missed out on the natural bridge, what we did see was very pretty and we enjoyed it.
From the Hunting Branch Trailhead, we took a short trail near the road that led to a picnic area next to the creek, very pretty. We spent about 10 minutes exploring this area then returned to the parking lot. Then we took the trail behind the information sign, crossing some shallow water by stepping on rocks. We came to a fork where the sign said the left trail was .4 mile to Devil’s Backbone so we went that way. When we saw the impressive rocks jutting up out of the creek, we knew we had reached the goal. Devil’s Backbone was beautiful. We spent about 30 minutes on this trail.
There are a few other trails in this area that we did not have time to explore.
翻译:我们沿着一条长长的碎石路到达了这里,感觉相当偏僻,不过在每条步道的入口处都看到了几个人。幸运的是,那天阳光明媚,我们选择的步道阴凉宜人,溪水潺潺,还有许多有趣的岩层。
从天然桥步道入口出发,我们一路下山,小心翼翼地沿着CCC在20世纪30年代修建的石阶行走。我没有数,但从我的照片来看,石阶至少有30级。阶梯底部是一块悬垂的岩石,然后是通往右(魔鬼脊骨)和左(天然桥)的步道。我们沿着左边的黄色火焰步道走,不久就遇到一处水道,我们没有穿好衣服,无法涉水,于是就掉头原路返回。我们在这条步道上待了大约45分钟——虽然我们没走多远,错过了天然桥,但我们看到的景色非常美丽,我们很享受。
从狩猎支线步道的起点出发,我们沿着公路旁的一条小路,来到小溪旁的野餐区,景色非常美丽。我们花了大约10分钟探索这片区域,然后返回停车场。之后,我们沿着指示牌后面的小路走,踩着岩石穿过一片浅水。我们来到一个岔路口,路标显示左边的小路距离魔鬼脊骨(Devil’s Backbone)还有0.4英里,于是我们沿着这条路走。当我们看到从小溪中拔地而起的雄伟岩石时,我们知道我们到达了目的地。魔鬼脊骨非常美丽。我们在这条小路上花了大约30分钟。
这个区域还有其他几条步道,我们没有时间去探索。