After Tropical Storm Hannah came through on Saturday, September 6, 2008, Crabtree Creek flooded the intersection of Hodges Road and Atlantic Avenue and also several sections of the Middle Creek portion of the Raleigh greenway.
above is the greenway underpass below Atlantic Ave. Below is the same view 9/6/08.
This is the first time the greenway has flooded since October 2007 by my count.
creek levels post on Pecans & Mistletoe
photo album of Crabtree flooding after Hannah
There is not a lot to update on the earlier post about Fletcher Park’s new water park, which remains in a distinctly unlovely stage of construction, but this project is interesting from several angles and seems worth another look. The large cavities being excavated from the red clay are designed to hold the water headed down to Pigeon House Creek, which is the long-suffering waterway that parallels Capital Boulevard as it flows north toward its intersection with Crabtree Creek at Raleigh Swamp. What look like huge pits will allow the water to deposit sediment and be filtered by plant activity before flowing on down the hill.
A nice description of the benefits, which include hopes for “A new ecosystem for this area of the park [with] butterflies, dragonflies, and frogs, among other animal species, ” can be found at The Raleigh Connoiseur. But that post was in May, and the plan was for the water garden to be finished soon after. But there it sits. The upper pool shown below will cascade or slide down to the larger lower pool.
This site was a Methodist orphanage, built in 1900 and still operating well into my lifetime. The City purchased the property in 1982 and named the park for A.J. Fletcher’s recreation-loving son. Fred Fletcher was inducted into the Raleigh Hall of Fame in 2007.
The outlet seen above is the water’s exit toward Pigeon House Creek. From this point the water dives underground and is piped under the railroad line and across N. West Street. I cannot find a spot to view that intersection yet. Below is a picture of Pigeon House Branch just downstream. We will follow it’s grim journey down Capital sometime soon.
Straight Streets: nature drives with a Raleigh road theme
With some finessing, but no turns, you can drive a thoroughfare through Raleigh from Highway 50 in Garner, straight north through the heart of downtown, out to Gresham’s Lake at Capital and 540. The middle of this 15 mile stretch is called Person Street, and when I was a kid my Dad told me this:
Son, this piece of asphalt you’re looking at goes from Florida to Maine. It’s part of one of the country’s great highways – and one of the first. Indians may have used this path before Columbus came. This is business US 1.
Person Street was a big part of my childhood, and now I live on it. It is the address of the church in which I grew up, Tabernacle Baptist, the Krispy Kreme, a beloved landmark long before they went public, and the Mordecai House, a genuine bridge to another time. It has been made one way now, so we can count Blount Street as its southbound lane. It has been extended to the north as Atlantic Avenue, which we will follow out. But it also has been cut off from its old extension, Wake Forest Road, as seen above, and yet this all intertwines in interesting ways in north Raleigh.
Let’s start at the farthest extensions southward: Person becomes Hammond, which becomes Timber Drive at 70. Timber crosses 70 and curves under the south edge of Garner,ending in a horse pasture just past 50. Reverse your direction, and you are looking at 3 miles of new suburban projects and shopping centers. The funny thing is, it all exists in what is recognizably old farm fields with mature trees in the lowlands and various stages of pine plantation everywhere else. There are loblollies everywhere!
The drive traverses four watersheds: Swift Creek in Garner, Walnut Creek at 40 and Hammond, Crabtree over the crest at New Bern Avenue, and the Neuse after the Char-Grill on Atlantic. Below is Wildcat Creek, a north bearing tributary of Walnut, as it crosses Hammond. This stretch just south of downtown is still heavily wooded, with side lots and a very large swale bordered by the Lake Wheeler Road offshoots. There are some trash dumps, plenty of kudzu and microstegia, but really some nice spots.
Proceeding north through downtown, one encounters many fascinating examples of human nature along Person Street. After sniffing the pet food factory at the transition from Hammond to Person, you cross Bragg Street, one of the most policed streets in Raleigh, but also some nicely renovated homes and parks, as well as the No Hand King at Person and MLK Blvd. – one of the coolest flag-bearers you will ever see. Moore Square, the Imax at my old church, the Governor’s Mansion – all are just preludes to the real star of Person Street – THE KRISPY KREME! The Raleigh Naturalist lives across the street.
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As you leave downtown, you pass the Mordecai House and its spring, garden, and historic building collection. It will have its own post soon. At the bottom of the hill, Person hits an old cowpath of an intersection whose traffic patterns have changed many times in my lifetime. Brookside, Old Louisburg, Capital, Wake Forest (which is now what Person is named) and Atlantic all crisscross. Atlantic Ave. is new, but The Circus (originally a Dairy Queen, I believe), and Watkins Grill are ancient and revered blue collar eateries. Each of them has to watch Pigeon House Creek, which crosses here, very carefully after heavy rains. You could take the straightest lane and head up US 1 to Maine. But let’s do as the city’s design suggests, and take the relatively new Atlantic Avenue north. On your left, you will see the cut off RR underpass where Person used to merge with Wake Forest Road. Atlantic rises over the railroad line in a tremendous arc which is achieved by a bridge whose shortsighted design is a travesty and an affront to any biker or pedestrian in this part of the city. There is a guardrail that forces everyone into the same lanes up in midair, and looks and feels just plain dangerous.
The view above is approaching south from Whitaker Mill, but the other side is just as bad. At the bottom of this imposing hill, back to the north, you hit Hodges Road which is one of the more versatile spots in all of Raleigh to begin a greenway trek. Buckeye beckons to the east, this Middle creek section carries you to Lassiter Mill westward, and several interesting bike trails lead other directions. Below is the north side of Atlantic with the underpass, and the marsh on the south side that leaks its water and is fast becoming a scrub bog.
The drive through northeast Raleigh from here is pretty boring. There is a huge meadow full of bugs and birds behind and across from the police substation, but both are surely doomed. Here is the shift from Marsh and Crabtree water to dry hills edging the Neuse drainage. After Spring Forest, bearing right puts you on Old Wake Forest Road, part of the original route from downtown Raleigh, which leads you directly to – Triangle Town Center!! – no fitting fate for a nature drive. So finesse to the left and begin your u-turn on Gresham’s Lake Road, which will take you to Litchford, where you can finish your u-turn by turning left and continue in a straight path south all the way back to Garner. Gresham’s Lake used to be a popular swimming and picnic spot. It’s eastern end is now part of a quarry operation. At it’s edge, you can see the huge Paul Bunyan that used to look out from a field on 401. The Bradshers gave up that property for the Wake Tech campus and moved ole Paul to their landscape business at Gresham’s.
More Person Street another time. It’s a rich straight street!
lower Longview Lake from south
This is the first picture I took with my new camera for this blog, in late January 2007. Longview Lake was the big body of water in my childhood. I was more familiar with the upper section, just below Enloe, which has been surrounded by development and is filling up with silt. This lower section is in good shape, and some of the homes have small docks, of which I’m quite envious.
Longview temporarily collects the waters of Bertie Creek, coming down Bertie Drive below Enloe, which then crosses Milburnie at Peartree Lane and makes its way down to Crabtree as seen below. This lowest stretch of Bertie, which parallels Milburnie and crosses under Buckeye Trail’s beginning, gets some interesting visitors exploring upstream from the larger creek. Just below the Buckeye bridge over it, the small creek pools up, and I have seen large sliders and snappers meditating a climb over the partly submerged sewer pipe blocking their way. Above the greenway bridge, there are some nice rock riffles, and I was once amazed ( and too startled to act) by lifting up a large flat rock to reveal an Amphiuma – my only sight ever of this huge, biting salamander.
Bertie Creek hits Crabtree
Crabtree and Bertie enclose a diagonal of East Raleigh neighborhood, east Rollingwood, that is bordered by rich upland woods. These high areas surround a large rock outcrop that turns the creek right after it has absorbed the waters of Marsh Creek. That union, Marsh Creek and Crabtree, creates a huge marshy area highlighted by Raleigh Swamp at Capital Boulevard. Below that, after the rocky overhang, Crabtree is steadily on its way to becoming a coastal plain waterway. It’s flat, meandering path is lined with deep, silt-lined walls of clay, gouged regularly by floods. It is not a pretty creek – the banks give the impression of accumulated eons of ring around the bathtub. But there are interesting tangles of trees and the occasional surprise.
Marsh Creek floodplain from Rollingwood
Crabtree at Milburnie
Nature News
Here, like usual, are so many opportunities to learn about and interact with nature. Even if you don’t need the structured activities, it’s nice to be reminded of the beavers at Blue Jay Point, the farm history at Oak View Park, the bats at Crowder Park on Ten-ten, and the restored gristmill at Yates Mill.
This post was originally published in May 2008
This owl swooped down and landed on a branch directly above Crabtree Creek as I walked on the high greenway that traverses a steep hill off Capital Boulevard. This is just east of the sad section that has recently had its woody buffer appropriated by bulldozers.
It sat there for the 20 minutes or so I watched it from different angles. I believe it’s a Barn Owl. This was about half hour before dusk. The owl was getting ready for work.
The owl is somewhere in the scene below. Crabtree takes a sharp bend as it approaches Capital Boulevard near the beltline. It is turned by a large rock outcrop that underlies the hill on which a large former car dealership resides, framed by the south ramp off the beltline. The slope from the back of the car dealership down to the creek is some really interesting terrain, and the troublesome but dramatic walkway that clings to the hillside is one of my favorite stretches in the whole system. One reason being it’s a great place to spot turtles, as you will see below. (snapper story below that)
Below is the rock that turns Crabtree. It looks dark and foliated, but it’s drenched in algae, so Iwon’t make a specific guess.
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Snapper Lays Eggs
The family of one of my students had a female snapping turtle crawl up into a sandy area near their backyard creek and lay some eggs. She finished and went on back to the creek, and now they get to watch for babies. Good luck to Carson and her family!
This post was originally published on May 18, 2008
The Wakefield Ecology Club
I made my first public appearance as The Raleigh Naturalist by presenting to the Ecology Club at Wakefield Middle School! I took my naturing vest, bursting with loupes, dissection kits, pocket guides and other paraphernalia. I took my naturing briefcase, more of a suitcase with topography maps, geology binder, park guides and my hand-built tree scrapbook. I also had my camera bag and hat. I gave a show and tell with all of that and talked to them about founding an Ecology Club at Enloe and also about my daughter Lily’s Envirothon work there (much more recently!).
This is my walking cabinet of nature resources. I am mostly done color coding the watersheds on the large map. The vest weighs 13 pounds.
The Wakefield Ecology Club was a great group of kids, led by Ms. Cindy Bowling, who invited me. They meet each week and perform recycling chores at Wakefield, plus try to learn more about their environment from guests. They knew lots of great stuff about conservation, invasive species, and native wildlife. We played a quiz game and I rewarded them with conservation goody packets put together by Lily last summer as a service project. All of the students showed excellent interest in the issues. The Wakefield MS campus is lovely. Below are some nature images from their campus.
These blackberries will taste good soon! Below is a rockfall with some really nifty “man-made conglomerate” – some nice high-iron stone encased in concrete.
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More Nature News
The News and Observer just teemed with good nature news this week. Durant Park has become a part of the Piedmont Birder’s Trail. Repairs have finally been completed on the section of Greenway between Capital Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue. This stretch of greenway was also featured in a “best greenways” survey by Joe Miller. Links below.
Middle Crabtree Greenway opens!
raleighnaturalist
The Raleigh Naturalist 
