Sweetwater Park

June 30,2019

For today's hike, we took the yellow trail from the parking area, the opposite of our usual hike toward the Manchester Mill. This trail took us upstream on the Sweetwater Creek and across the bridge. We had never gone that way before, although Darla and Ashleigh had taken that trail direction. The trail brought us back downstream on the side opposite the Manchester Mill and gave us a new view of the "Factory".

Jordan and Elyse head northward, upstream, on the Yellow Trail.

They stopped to do exercises on a small wooden bridge across a smaller creek. Elyse did a split and Jordan pulled her foot to the back of her head. Both of them managed to give Granddad leg pains, just watching them!

We reached the water and found the Sweetwater Creek here to be deep and smooth, and we could see fish in the water and turtles on logs and rocks sunning themselves.

We reached the bridge across Sweetwater, which we had not seen before.

We moved on north of the bridge a short distance because they saw some attractive rocks they might climb out on.

But about the time they were going to step out on the rocks, they saw this colorful water snake among the rocks. The right part of the photo shows him making his way out of the vicinity, so they were able to walk out on the rocks.

After the concerns about the fearsome serpent were allayed when it left the vicinity, they were able to get out and do some rock-hopping.

This was in the area just upstream from the bridge.

After a bit of rock-hopping, we headed back toward the bridge. There were points along the creek where we got good views of the turtles sunning.

Looking back downstream to this new pedestrian bridge, it appears that it is in the location of the old steel bridge on Factory Shoals Road when it was probably a dirt road.

I was thinking that this was the location of the old swimming hole when Brenda was a child, but our 1946 pictures of the swimming hole place it near the current KOA campground where Old Alabama Road crosses Sweetwater. That is what Brenda recalls. I'm still thinking that we went to the water near the old steel bridge on the old Factory Shoals Road when the boys were very small. I spent some time in this area, and I and the boys rode trail bikes in this area when they were in the neighborhood of 10 years old.

I liked this view of the bridge with its reflection in Sweetwater Creek. The small structures that can be seen in the water at right seem to be old steel bridge girders from the old steel bridge.

We were about to cross the bridge to continue along the Yellow Trail. Both girls took the time out to do splits on the end of the bridge.

The trail on this side of the creek gave us the view of the Factory across the creek, a view I had never seen.

It was a pleasure to see the old Factory from the opposite side of Sweetwater Creek.

I was surprised to find this fine specimen of a butterfly alongside the trail. My best attempt at an identification is the species "Red-Spotted Purple" described on p278 of the Peterson Field Guide "Eastern Butterflies" and on the linked Florida Museum site. I started out thinking that it might be a variation on a Swallowtail, and found it interesting that the field guide discussed its pattern as a protective mimic of a bad-tasting variety of Swallowtail. There are quite a few variations on the "Purple" butterfly, but it seems that this butterfly must be in that range of variations. Once I had identified the butterfly, it was interesting that I had seen one in Arkansas in 2017 on our visit there. We had also seen one on an RA trip to Stone Mountain in 2007.

I'm used to seeing turtles on logs, but these narrow ridges of rock served these turtles quite well as perches for their sunning.

The trail took us into deep, dark woods, but there were fascinating sights along the way. An interesting stream criss-crossed the trail, and at one point ran under the roots of a very large oak tree.

One of the notable things about this pleasant walk was seeing our usual stopping points on the opposite side of the creek, like this rock outcropping where we always stop on our way to the Factory. Covering maybe four miles or so, it was a good hike and we enjoyed another trip to Sweetwater.