Raven Rock State Park

Anyone with kids in eastern North Carolina should take them to Raven Rock at least once. Younger kids, especially, will be fascinated by the namesake rock face on the Cape Fear River, and they'll enjoy scrambling over and around the boulders on the riverside portion of the trail.
	I first began going to Raven Rock in the early 1970s after my brother visited on a school field trip and recommended it for a Mother's Day picnic. On our first visit, at least, I remember that there was a rope but no stairway down to the river-level pathway at the rock. Our family and a few others from Fayetteville went there for Mother's Day yearly for a few years.

	In high school, a bunch of us would skip school once in a while and go to Raven Rock to run around. There are nearly seven miles of hiking trails open to the public, but there are still areas of the 4,667-acre park that aren't open. The northern area of the park, which was recently opened across the river from the rock, has seven miles of bridle trails. We were there last in October 2006, and the trees were showing nice fall color.
The Raven Rock Loop trail has viewpoints overlooking the Cape Fear River; this view is to the west.
All of Raven Rock's trails are rated as easy except for the five-mile Campbell Creek Loop, which is moderate. Here Pam is on the wide Fish Traps trail headed up from the river.
Several trails, including Fish Traps, go right down to the river's shore. There are also places to get right on the river, like this family did.

Across the river from the Fish Traps area, a deer was making its way downstream. Here, it's walking but most of the time it was swimming or floating. At first we thought it was in trouble, but it got out of the water at one point and then got back in to resume swimming along with the current.
Raven Rock is off of U.S. 421 west of Lillington in Harnett County.