Hugh S. Branyon Back Country Trails, Gulf State Park, AL

After a great Thanksgiving in Birmingham, we traveled down to Gulf Shores, AL for the winter.

The Back Country Trails have expanded since we were here in February.  State Route 2 is now a bicycle/skateboard trail from the Hugh S Branyon parking lot to Campground Road.  There's new bicycle trails running in and along side the campground.

New to me are the bridges to keep the bicycles and walkers off the environmental sensitive areas.  One bridge seems to run at least a half mile in length on the north side of Possum Road.

Pictures here are of some the views around the area trails.  The top picture is looking toward Gulf Shores.  The construction on the left is of the new conference center for the state park.

Second picture down is of the cabins from a new viewing point (reached by a new trail) on Shelby Lake.

Third picture down is from a new trail bridge running from the check-in/trailer storage area to a paved path toward Canal Road.

The next three pictures are of a new trail

running from Catman Road to the Rosemary Dunes Trail.

Bottom picture is of Rattlesnake Trail looking toward the Orange Beach Fire Department.  While I have no proof, we did see a bobcat along Rattlesnake Trail this morning.  It was faster than I could get the pciture taken - and I really didn't want to encourage it that I could be an early lunch, anyway!

So that's our first week here.  Thanks for dropping by.  Until next week - David