At the easternmost tip of Raleigh’s greenways, Buckeye Trail at Milburnie Road, the young beeches, which keep their old leaves through the winter, look like luminaries spread through the flat lowland off this section of greenway. These pictures don’t really capture the effect – I’ll keep trying!
This is close to the right time of day – right before dusk – and the dead of winter, but the eery quality involves the depth of their scattered penetration, evenly, through the slightly older but teenage pines…. and the perfectly flat lowland which nestles under Rollingwood where LongView Creek finds Crabtree.
Midwinter is a great time to explore OFF the greenway, at least for poison ivy abhorrers like me. The sewer cuts and fishing paths are available, and at this east end of Buckeye, the big beeches on the creek slopes have laid out startling off-white saplings to lighten up the dark winter texture of the woods.
The Raleigh Naturalist 
This reminds of Umstead Park. It’s so beautiful year round. Like being transformed into the Redwood Forest or something similar. Your photos make me appreciate Raleigh nature. It’s so peaceful to just look at the trees and watch the geese and birds. And you gotta love how when it snows around Raleigh, it only lasts for a day and then it’s gone. Just enough to give a beautiful winter wonderland…
Comment by Brandy Ruth/Raleigh VIP Club — March 12, 2009 @ 12:43 am
[…] baby beeches we have admired before looked nice mixed into the snowy pines. Below is the scene at the beginning of Buckeye, where […]
Pingback by Snowy Tree Blocks Buckeye Greenway « Raleigh Nature — February 13, 2010 @ 9:27 pm
[…] past this meadow is a large stand of young beeches standing in a floodplain. As you leave them and approach Crabtree, the sewer line cuts under the […]
Pingback by Buckeye’s Intermittent Closings Remind Us of Its Value « Raleigh Nature — August 31, 2012 @ 3:32 pm