News & Observer | newsobserver.com | 2008 NCAA Men's Bracket

Perhaps you've heard sketchy tales from old timers about a hiking trail around Lake Crabtree.

There used to be a bridge across Black Creek!

People got lost back there because the trail suddenly got swallowed in a marsh!

Part of the hike was a death march along busy Aviation Parkway!

Well, it's all true. The trail was somewhat indecisive at times, occasionally taking the path less followable. It did return (if you walked it clockwise) along Aviation Parkway. And there was a bridge. A bridge that was washed out by Tropical Storm Alberto in 2006 and, according to Lake Crabtree County Park manager Drew Cade, should be "substantially complete" by late August. ("Substantially complete" — that's government talk for "useable.")

The lake trail is 6 miles long (up from 5.5 miles in its previous incarnation, due to rerouting) and runs as such: along the mountain bike trail, up to the Black Creek Greenway across the dam, across Black Creek (on the new bridge) about a quarter mile upstream from the dam, along the shoreline beneath Aviation Parkway, back into the park along the nature trail.

Now, about those myths/truths.

Yes, the trail used to get easily lost on the far side of the lake. Cade says that's changed, that the marshy sections have been boardwalked, that the trail is now easy to follow.

As for Aviation Parkway, yes you did have to walk along the nearly non-existant shoulder previously. If DOT in its haste to pave the state wanted to lay down some useful asphalt, they could start here. Since that's not likely to happen, the park has cut a narrow, foot-wide trail just above the lake, on the safe side of the guardrail.

Once the bridge is substantially complete, I'll take a hike and report back.