September 17, 2026

The 6AM wake up call was too early. I opened my eyes and reset my alarm for 7:00AM, with every intention of getting up. The goal was to experience the trail again in solitude, but this time with perhaps some new visitors that may have flown in overnight. The alarm was turned off at 7:00AM and remained unset while I was still under the covers. It was clearly one of those mornings, and a 9-mile hike was anything but a lure to get out of bed.

Finally, I moved and geared up, though I left the headlamp at the house. It would have been useless and just extra weight. After all, it was well past sunrise, and I was not alone at Williamson. As I pulled into a parking spot, the radio blared a familiar lyric, “but only you can fix my soul. So take me home.” I turned off the ignition, donned my pack, and I was off.

The lyrics and Myles Smith’s voice and tone kept playing in my head while pondering all I had learned from The Nature Fix on the healing and restorative powers of nature, particularly trees and water. Williamson has minimal water, a trickling stream or dry stream bed that probably fills after rain or if the Neuse is flooded, but trees, trees are plentiful.  After all, it was a forest.

The main trunk of the daisy trail system is divided into three sections: the Little Falls Loop, Longleaf Pine Loop, and the Salamander Loop. The beginning loop, the Pine Warbler, is always an afterthought since it’s so close to the beginning/end, it goes almost unnoticed as a result of my speed, either because I have fresh legs or I’m so close to the car, I apparently find another gear despite a gas tank running on E.

Little Falls Loop

But today, I noticed the trees. The temperature was cooler than Monday, and it appeared as though some of the deciduous trees in this section had begun to drop their leaves. The early morning sun was not completely up, and so the interior depths of the forest remained shrouded in shadows. Muscadines and ferns blanketed sections along the base of trees and along the banks of the stream bed. The muscadine was plentiful and sprawled all over the forest floor. The ferns, however, clung to pockets of light. As the trail wound up a small grade, the trail paralleled the forest edge that backed, interestingly enough, up to a landfill. I could hear the hum of the trucks and their beeping as they backed up. There along the edge, light sprawled across the ground and trail. The ferns abounded in this area.

Much of the light from the edge habitat streamed like spotlights onto the ground, illuminating a fern frond. At this time, it looked as though the ferns had taken center stage, each with their own ray of light highlighting the intricacies of their leaves. Their performance likely happens every morning. I wonder how long they captivate their audience before the light shifts overhead and their act comes to a close.

After passing this ridge, the loop ends, and there is a break before the Longleaf Pine Loop starts. The break, whether intentional by the land management staff, probably not; a remnant of a long ago decision when this property was a plantation, or just nature doing Nature’s things, had created two distinct forests.

Long Leaf Pine Loop

The Longleaf Pine Loop is characterized by none other than the Longleaf, and probably also Loblolly pines. Here there are no front and center actors or actresses, as the forest stage is fully illuminated, while be it with soft morning light. The canopy is high overhead, and needles and muscadine almost alone blank at the floor.

This is my favorite section of the main loop system. I love the soft light during this time and the softness of the forest floor that continues to invite me to take off my shoes and rest or reset. But I haven’t done a sensory walk at Williamson, though this would be the perfect spot.

This section also has more birdsong and is the home to none other than the resident Pileated Woodpecker. I heard it calling through the forest and being answered back by nuthatches this morning. The thinner canopy allows for better birding, but what it offers in visibility, it lacks in the birds’ often proximity. The birds here are so far overhead you have to crane your neck to attempt to get a glimpse.

Regardless, it’s my favorite spot. Maybe because on my long hikes I still feel fresh at this point, or on the way back it’s a halfway point back to the car. I, however, think it’s the open invitation this section of the forest continues to offer. It’s asking for connection: Asking me to stay a little while longer and slow down, so it can take me home to the barefoot wild child of the forest I once was. That we all once were.

It’s showing me the road and something Muir and Smith knew in their own ways, “Into the Forest I go, to lose my mind and to find my soul.”