Checking out the Chimney Rocks

Yesterday I was bummed because it was supposed to rain, so I skipped my hike. Then it was sunny most of the day.

Today I needed to go back to town for a few things I forgot, and I went for a drive first. I'd been meaning to check out Station Camp Road, which is along the way to town. It goes north and ends at the river, at Station Camp Crossing. It's a horse camp, where people can camp with their horses when they come to ride on the trails in the park.

I figured it would be a scenic drive, and useful to know what the road was like... And I had happened to see online somewhere that there were some interesting rock formations near the end of the road.

Station Camp road is even more twisty and winding than any of the roads I’ve been on so far – a real roller coaster road, where driving 30 miles per hour feels recklessly dangerous! It’s not actually that long, but it took a while because I had to take it slow. It was a fun ride. About halfway along, it entered the park and turned to gravel, and I was even more careful. Once I passed the horse camp I started looking for the rock formations that were supposed to be near the road. I was afraid I would miss it, but there it was, right by the road! There was even a little parking area, with a sign that said "Chimney Rocks."

Pretty hard to miss, really.

The daisy fleabane that was lining the roads a few weeks ago has been replaced by daisies.

This is an amazing hunk of rock. The way the layers are, it looks swirled around! It's just an amazing set of circumstances that caused it to erode like this. That chunk on top is a harder caprock that helped it to resist weathering even as the rock all around it disappeared.

Does that look like a face on the lower right to you?

I knew there was supposed to be more than one of these formations, but I couldn't see anything else, except for a couple of trails going off into the woods, very overgrown and a good place to find ticks. I did walk along a little gravel road with a sign saying "To Cemetery". There are lots of little cemeteries in the hills of the park, because a lot of people used to live out here. Some are still maintained by family members. This turned out to be one of them.

It was very peaceful, obviously mown but surrounded by forest, and recently attended - probably for Memorial Day, just last weekend.

There were some very old stones, and some that were relatively recent.

When I walked back to the car, I suddenly spotted the second chimney rock, off to one side - not far from where I had walked the first time! But it was behind a tree from where I had first looked, so I had totally missed it.

I can't believe it was right there and I missed it.

It is rather overgrown.

I drove on down to see the river crossing. There were some big rock outcrops along the way.

This was right by the road. I realized that under the rock ledge was a big clay bank that was evidently some kind of termite mound. See below - that's a lot of little holes! There were also some wasps' nests on the rock just above.

I walked down toward the river crossing but couldn't quite get all the way there. The ramp was made of textured cement, but there was a layer of mud on top of that and it was too slippery for me to risk it, as I'm not a horse. I'll have to go back again sometime when it hasn't been raining!

When I got back in my car this big fly came in with me! It landed in a plastic container that was on the passenger seat, so I got a picture before evicting my unwanted passenger.

All in all, a very pretty drive! I'll definitely go back there later this summer.