Spur of the moment trip to Raven Rock State Park, NC this weekend. I unfortunately wasn't going to be able to go to the Roan Mountain hangout, but at the very last minute I was able to manage to get away for a shorter trip to Raven Rock State Park with a happily available hiking buddy. My friend TJ is pretty new to cold weather camping, so it worked well to not be up in the deep snow at 0F with wind like there was up at Roan. Instead, we headed southerly, and our low was 26F, there was no snow, and very little wind, except down by the river.

This park is located at the "fall line", an approximately 20 mile wide shelf where the mountain foothills of the Piedmont of NC transitions to the Coastal plain. The Cape Fear River carved the rocks in this zone into steep riverside cliffs, which were used as navigation aids for the river traffic that was common until the railroads came. Raven Rock is just north of Fayetteville and Fort Bragg, and there were a lot of military folks with their families and dogs also out enjoying the park. Temps during the day were up around 55-60F, and the skies were blue. Beautiful.

https://picasaweb.google.com/brownpa...teParkFeb2011#