Red Mountain

Click and it will become MUCH BIGGER.

See the artifacts we 'found' here!
http://ecrawfordphotography.blogspot.com/2013/03/artifacts.html

On Saturday, we wanted to get outside for the day and see something new.  We decided on Birmingham because I thought there'd be some wildflowers up there since they area on the brink here.  But, no.  Nothing we don't already have up ourselves.

We discussed Ruffner Mountain and Oak Mountain or maybe Tannehill and I remembered seeing that Red Mountain had recently opened up part of their new trail system, so I started looking around for that and we decided to head over there and check it out.

We started off planning to hit an overlook and see at least one of the several old mining areas and I wanted to check out the treehouse.  So, we picked up a map and took off, trying out different trails until we had seen them all and then we decided to head over and check out the zipline tour.

Tours (March 2013) are currently $50 per person, I imagine they will go up once they add more to the course, which is currently underway.  It looked like lots of fun!

After checking out the zipline, we wandered over to see the above mine site and decided to keep going on up the mountain to the Grace's Gap Overlook at the end of the trail. 

That was my favorite part of the whole day, I loved the entire trail.  Be sure to check here to see the 'stuff' along the way.

 The red from the iron deposits got into everything.  Nia came home dusted with red paws, our shoes are all red on the bottom, our pants cuffs and last night there was a red ring in the tub after each kid finished bathing off the dust!  Not a place for white clothing!!

 On the way back through to the van, I took some shots of the zipline tour group in action.

 After over 7 miles of either old gravel access roads or red-ore stained trails, the path from the zipline tour to the parking area seemed extra-pale!

 Right now, parking is along the street at the trailhead.  There were 80 or more cars there, but we only saw a few people scattered around once we got out into the trail system.  Below is the trailhead sign, it's very unassuming, you'd drive right past if you were not looking for it!

We stopped at Taco Bell to grab a bite en route to home and once here, we snarfed down my first attempt at flourless cake.  Let me just say, it was AWESOME.  I will be taking pictures next time I make it (today!) and post them.