MST-62, segment 6

Hauser Road trailhead to Rockford, westbound

April 17, 2025. Although my main focus lately is to complete the sections out on the coast, each hiking adventure now takes an overnight because of the travel distance, which I didn’t have the time for this week.

But heading west is still do-able in one day. It was a 90-minute drive to the Corridor trailhead south of Pilot Mountain, the start of Segment 6.

The parking lot gate doesn’t open until 8:30am, but the comfort station was available!

There goes my husband-shuttle driver, on his way to some excellent birding in the nearby counties. He takes photos like this one, of a Common Yellowthroat:

Meanwhile, I am hiking. This will be 16.6 miles, all along country roads.

Yay! for HILLS!

Seriously, the coastal plains can get a little tedious. I didn’t mind having some up and downs.

At 6:30am, it was still a bit chilly (39 degrees), but I shed the wool hat after an hour.

One final view of Pilot Mountain

Traffic was incredibly light all day long, and Surry County is just so pretty. It was a terrific day of hiking!

I took my sit-down, boots-off break here along the road at the ten-mile mark. Having fresh socks is always a pick-me-up (and I usually pop two aspirin at this point, as well).

Historic Rockford

Here I am in the final quarter mile. I am actually quite shaken at this point, because I just had a very unfriendly encounter with a dog-owner, who yelled at me, “If you hit my dog, he’ll bite your leg off!”

This is because his pit bull was racing at me in attack mode, so I took off my backpack to swing at him during his final lunge at me–but the owner called him off and then issued his threat. I yelled back, “Control your dog!”

The dog then turned and ran at me again….I yelled, “Keep your dog away from me!” and the owner called him off again (his wife was on the porch at this point and I think was yelling at her husband).

You expect dogs to be unpredictable, but there’s something particularly upsetting about having an aggressive OWNER.

I was relieved to arrive safely at the junction of Rockford and Buck Ford Roads.