Drought 2007 Effects on Lake Lynn, Raleigh NC

The drought of 2007 has placed central North Carolina between storms off the coast and floods in the interior cities. It is not unusual to have a period of clear dry hot weather. That said, this has proven to be a tough year.

Consistent with my love of the greenways, I wondered how the drought was affecting the trails. Lake Lynn Loop Trail, another popular trail for a wide variety of Raleigh residents, was my second stop on checking the trails for drought.

Lake Lynn is a stand alone trail that is about two miles around. Though the trail has no park facilities, there is a community center six tenths of a mile from the trail.

Feeding domestic and wild ducks and geese is a favorite activity on this trail. Seeing turtles pop up to take a morsel from the birds is a favorite with children.

It is fun watching children try to feed a particular bird within a boisterous flock. My grand children delight in feeding the birds when I take them to this trail. My granddaughter picks out a particular bird that looks hungry to her and tries to throw the food at it. Often it hits the bird and bounces away to another waiting bird.

This trail is wedged between a multitude of apartments and similar high density housing. The residents along the trail make up a significant proportion of the trail users. Except from the climb from the parking lot on Lynn Road, there are no hills that are terribly difficult to most people.

The boardwalk portion of the trail is absolutely flat.

The perspective on the drought for this lake as of September 9th is not particularly good. The water has disappeared from most of the northern half of the lake and is consequently lower on the southern half.

There are a number of small trees that have clearly yielded to the drought. Many of the small vines that fill North Carolina have turned brown with thirst. The trails along the lake have leaf cover that is getting fairly severe.

Many of the birds that used to ply the lake have left. Where they have gone I do not know.

I saw no sign of turtles, which was not really a surprise. What did surprise me was the lack of small birds like cardinals and wrens. Usually if you can't see them, you can hear their songs. At least for this afternoon the woods were silent.

Lake Lynn's trails have not been impacted by the drought even if the environment looks more like a desert.