I had hiked nearly all of the Ten Mile Creek Trail, except for maybe a quarter mile in the middle. So last weekend I did a six-mile round-trip to get it.
There is nothing particularly special about that bit, just south of the Osprey Heights trail, but it's a nice trail overall.
Unusally, because of the weather, there were no bikes out. In fact, I saw no one on my way out. (I didn't even get started that early - it was 9:45!)
For a long hike in February, I wanted to explore the new-ish Danger Noodle Trail. It starts in the northwest corner of Black Hill Regional Park, and it is designed primarily for cyclists.
I started at the Cool Spring trailhead and headed downhill. After connecting briefly to the Ten Mile Creek trail, I chose to follow the northern side of the Danger Noodle loop west. This is a pleasant little section on top of a ridge, with modest views of the valley below. In summer, these would be obscured by leaves.
From there, I took the Jewelweed connector to the Whistle Pig loop, which circumnavigates a cornfield. Yes, I chose the shortest side, since it's not an interesting trail. Then I took the Bucklodge trail around the conservation area. When visiting a year ago, I said it was not a very interesting loop, and I stand by it. There is nothing bad about it - if you want to want around in a mostly flat circle* in the woods, it is there for you. But it's also, well, a flat circle in the woods.
I returned via the same side of Whistle Pig, then Jewelweed, then the south side of Danger Noodle. A good portion of this is close to some houses, and there is a lot of litter and trash in that section. It could benefit from a cleanup. As it travels east, it goes back into the woods and is cleaner.
I finished up via the Ten Mile Creek and Cool Spring trails, for a total of ten miles.
It was a nice hike for a local training hike - it's not one I would recommend traveling great distances to do. I was primarily intrigued by the idea of connecting these trails together. Bucklodge is as far as you can go with that; it has a couple of small connectors to streets around it, but that's it.
*That's topographically, not geometrically.
