I made it to the trailhead at Wear Cove Gap by about 8:30 this morning and immediately hiked a short portion of the road to the Roundtop Trail.
It was a cold and frosty morning and the thick, downed leaves coated with ice crystals were a bit slippery.
I started the hike with lots of views towards the summit of the trail's namesake: Roundtop.
This early portion of the trail closely followed the park boundary,
and I found myself with lots of view of large rustic-style homes. The trail even veered practically into someone's backyard living area.
It was an exceedingly pleasant day for a hike.
The trail was never really that steep (except for one short extremely steep section) and there were still a few trees with leaves clinging to their branches.
With most of the leaves down, there were lots of nice views through the tree branches of the surrounding mountains.
While I didn't see any flowers in bloom, there were lots of seeds clinging onto the stems, including these milkweed seeds.
The trail ascended to Joint Ridge and then started a long, but gentle descent down to the Little River at the Townsend Wye. The lower portions of trail traversed some sections where rock had been blasted away to form a ledge for the trail.
Soon I found myself at the river,
the junction of Middle Prong, West Prong and the Little River.
I explored the area a bit and found an old metal ring.
Was there a bridge here at one time? Then I found a nice rock to sit on and eat a snack. There were lots of people out along the river on the other side. I had my side of the river all to myself. After my snack I packed up my stuff and started to make my way back to the trailhead. The return trip featured lots of great views of Cove Mountain
which I had hiked about a year ago in the snow.
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