Nicely tucked away over in Birmingham's East Lake is the Ruffner Mountain Nature Center. It had been about ten months since I last visited, when I went trail running last May. This trip was to be a little less intensive; I was going with two friends and Darby.
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| Matt attempting to scale part of Sandstone Ridge |
While us human folk hiked a couple of miles, Darby easily doubled and maybe tripled our mileage with all of her advanced scouting of the trail.
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| Darby impatiently awaiting our catching up to her |
It was a really nice outing, though we ended up on a different trail than we had intended. I had hoped to go down to one of the quarries but somehow ended up on the same trail as last time, and headed to the wetlands, then to Sandstone Ridge.
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| Cattails of the Wetlands |
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| The Wetlands |
In addition to some incredible weather, we also had the please of the early blooms of the wildflowers. If you haven't yet been to Ruffner Mountain, you should certainly add it to your list; it's smaller than Oak Mountain but also less populous, meanwhile offering well manicured trails and quiet commune with nature.
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| Wildflowers near the Wetlands |
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| One of many Trillium flowers along the Trails |
