On April 12, 2018, HCAS members took a field trip to the Burntfield Creek Trail, just off the John's River near the Johns River Camp, in Caldwell County, near the community of Collettsville. This blog entry is a record of what we found there.
To get to the site from Blowing Rock, the driving directions are:
-Take Business 321/221 into downtown and go straight at the traffic light onto Main Street.
-Go 0.4 miles and turn right on John's River Rd. (AKA Globe Rd., mostly gravel)
-Go 8.4 miles and turn left on Anthony Creek Rd.(paved)
-Go 1.0 mile and turn left on a road of unknown name, probably still Anthony Creek.
-Go 1.3 miles until passing Globe mountain road and continue straight
-Go 1.0 miles to a small, overgrown pullout on the left and park.
-If you get to Johns River Camp, you've gone 0.5 miles too far.
The trail is mostly unmaintained and overgrown, and it follows the creek up into the hollow for about 1.5 miles, with some parts quite steep. It passes by very pretty waterfall and ends up at a large cave below an overhanging rock mass.
With warmer weather the ticks and poison ivy are quite prevalent so its best to go in early spring. When we were there on 4/12/2018, no ticks were found and the poison ivy was all dormant. During a followup visit on 5/3/2018, I found about a dozen ticks crawling on my clothes and the poison ivy was very evident.
Also found but not pictured were Wild Bergamot, Stone Crop, and Wild Hydrangea. Here are some pictures of the cave at the top.
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| Looking into the cave with scale, our leader and host Walt Kent in the middle |
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| View from inside the cave. |
NOTE: Click on any picture to see it full size
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| Fire Pink shown here with a trillium |
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| Closeup of Fire Pink |
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Great Chickweed
(aka Giant Chickweed, Star Chickweed)
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| Hen Bit |
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| Robin's Plantain |
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| Foam Flower |
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| Catesby's Trillium |
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| Large-flowered Trillium |
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| Rue Anemone |
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| Buttercup |
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| Wood Betony (aka Lousewort) |
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| Purple Phacelia |
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Hepatica (aka liver-leaves) leaves only;
flower is another plant |
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| Hepatica flower |
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| Unknown plant |
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| Fraser's Sedge |
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| Golden Alexander |
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| Golden Alexander-closeup on flowers |
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| Small Bellwort (aka Wild Oats) |
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| Showy Orchis |
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| Maidenhair Fern |
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| Jack-in-the-pulpit |
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| Branch Lettuce (aka Brook Lettuce) |
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| Rattlesnake Plantain |
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| Partridgeberry leaves |
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| Halberd-leaved Violet |
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| Indian Cucumber |
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| Red Trillium |
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| Adam-and-eve Orchid (aka Puttyroot) |
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| Nodding Mandarin |
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| Virginia Jump Seed |
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Solomon's Seal
(I've been told this might actually be Bellwort) |
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| Bloodroot leaf |
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| Squawroot, aka Squaw Corn, Bear Corn, Cancer Root |
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| Dwarf Crested Iris |
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| Solomon's Plume |
