Today’s hike was definitely a “hiking light” to see how my knee would do an an easy day of hiking. It has been over 4 weeks since my knee surgery so the doctor said it would be OK to do “level, flat” hiking – the trails around McIver are pretty flat, but up and down and the tread, so it seemed like a good choice. Thor hasn’t been hiking in 5 weeks either so he was raring to get out. Abby decided she wanted to come too, which was a nice change of pace.

When we got to McIver there was a sign saying there was some kind of cross country “event” going on. When we were deciding where to go, we decided to go to the other side of the park from the “event”. We still saw quite a few runners during the day (a few of them at least a couple of times), but it wasn’t too bad. We decided to do the southern part of the park – a loop I have taken before. Part of it was Thor’s first hike when he was a little puppy.

We parked and headed south on the Dog Creek Trail and then (I think) we joined the Rivermill trail. There are so many trails in the park and so many junctions it can get confusing as to what trail you are on. We proceeded around the backside of the hatchery and then took a turn and crossed the park road – soon we got near the river and went down a short side trail to take a closer look at it:

We got to a parking area and not too far beyond was a viewpoint for the Rivermill Dam which was built in 1911 – so it is 111 years old!!!:

After we looked at the dam for a few minutes we decided to come back a slightly different way. When we stopped earlier there was a sign with the trails and it had a note for the “Nation’s Second Largest Yew Tree” – I thought we could see it since we appeared to have missed it on the way in. We got to where it was, however we didn’t see any signs about it – I think I saw it, but can’t be sure. It was a very large yew tree.

A couple of minutes after the yew tree, we were back at the truck. We headed home. It was a very short hike, but it was nice to get out and spend a little time with Abby. My knee did fantastic so I should be ready to hike again in another couple of weeks!