Milburnie Dam - raleighparks.org

While I’ll be at the beach over Labor Day week, I wanted to share a must-do item for exploring Raleigh over the holiday weekend. If you’re looking for some exercise, flora, fauna and beautiful scenery, this portion of the Neuse River Trail is it – it has a suspension bridge, croaking frogs, majestic herons, and an old dam!

Most recently we explored the Neuse River Trail from milepost 13.25 to 15. We parked in the small paved residential lot at 2894 Abington Ln in east Raleigh. After a short run down to the trail, we came to the compass in the greenway and decided to head north for a bit in search of the huge suspension bridge (by looking at the online greenway map, it looks like you cross the river just north of here). Within 1/4 of mile we came upon the suspension bridge at milepost 13.5, which seems to come out of the middle of nowhere! It seems so unique and breathtaking to me to have a suspension bridge on the greenway; I’m pretty sure I got goosebumps (granted it was 100+ degrees outside) and felt very sentimental for my city!

We ran another 1/4 mile north until milepost 13.25 and then turned around and headed south. We ran back over the suspension bridge where we saw some fisherman casting lines. Further along we passed residential homes to the west and wetlands to the east with several overpasses in between and white barn fencing in certain areas that gave this trail a farm-like feeling. There are more stretches of sunny parts along this trail than what I’m used to, I think mostly due to the neighborhood developments; it added some intensity to this hot summer run so don’t forget extra water!

We ran south until the Milburnie Dam, which we have explored in the past. Again, it’s amazing to see what parts of Raleigh you’ll miss if you don’t get on foot! So get out and explore this weekend!

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Thumbs up: beautiful views, wetlands with information signs, suspension bridge, parking lot with access to trail, mile markers

Thumbs down: nothing to report

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While I was training for the City of Oaks 10k last fall, it gave us a chance to try out several trails during my longer runs on the weekend. One Saturday we headed over to the Neuse River Greenway near Anderson Point Park for a 4 mile run. The Neuse River Greenway runs through Anderson Point Park and since I had explored part of the trail south of the park, we decided to park in the small lot prior to the entrance to Anderson Point Park and run north.

The parking lot at 22 Anderson Point Dr is rather large and serves for access to the greenway, overflow parking to the park, and canoe launch access to the river. After parking, we headed north on the greenway and shortly saw mile marker 17 and signs for Mingo Creek Trail, which is maintained by the Town of Knightdale.

Along our 4 mile run (2 miles out and back) we passed over several pedestrian bridges, ran under New Bern Ave, passed a good amount of bikers and runners and discovered the beautiful Milburnie Dam. The nearby greenway bridge provides great straight-on views of the dam, which has been out of commission since the 80s. Milburnie Dam was first built in the mid-1850s as a power source for a paper mill. From powering a paper mill, streetcars, and gristmill this dam has seen several changes since its inception according to the on-site information guide. While the dam hasn’t been in use since the 1980s, it has since created a vibrant habitat for several animals. In researching more about the dam it seems that removal of the dam has been debated for the last decade so its future use is unknown. In the meantime, be sure to visit this great spot for some amazing photo opportunities…yet another reason why running on the greenway can provide beautiful surprises.

There is a small parking lot for quicker access to Milburnie Dam near the intersection of Old Milburnie Rd and Loch Haven Rd.

Check out Raleigh Nature’s blog post for more information on the Milburnie Dam.

Thumbs up: beautiful views of Milburnie Dam, relatively flat and shady greenway, having a playground near the greenway

Thumbs down: nothing to report

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