More Adventuring - Don Robinson State Park

For the next installment of our weekly adventure series, we drove just a short way down to Don Robinson State Park.  We are totally into the rugged, feature-heavy hiking trails and this place did not disappoint. Very well done park, with beautiful entrance roads and nice facilities...although the bathrooms were not open because of the plague.

We chose the Sandstone Canyon Trail, because, well, it sounded really cool.  Who doesn't like canyons?

After just a few hundred yards of shady pavement, we were delighted to see the single track trail.  Right away, the treats started coming.  This crazy rock bridge would be FABULOUS with heavy running water.  Mental note...visit this in a downpour or in the dead of winter...I can imagine the awesome ice features!

Water has it's way with the sandstone in the region, and there are so many rock features as evidence of that.

One doesn't have to walk far to see the power of water.  The big elevation changes in the park mean that water has plenty of speed to cut into whatever stands in it's way.

Of course, the big draw to this place (as if there aren't plenty) is the huge rock hollow.  Coming upon it, it looks like an old quarry.  But it's a massive hole, with the walls cut out by running water.  You know that cool rock overhang on the Rock Hollow (Zombie) Trail?  This is about 5 times that.

I was feeling small, but very comfortable in the much-cooler temps in the hollow.  There was plenty of water dripping through the rocks, too.

Leaving the hollow, there were plenty of other massive walls of carved rock.

Another wall that reminded us of Flintstone apartment buildings.

Getting close to the end, there was quite a bit of climbing.  We didn't realize we were doing a lot of descending along the way until we had to climb out of this really cool valley.

Mr. Robinson was an old dude with a real love of the wilderness.  He donated his land at his death to be made into a park.  This is his house on location that is undergoing renovation.

We highly recommend the place.  We could have done a lot more hiking if we had the time, as there was another whole trail system we didn't get to see.