Day 35 - Oak Mountain State Park

For this hike, we have returned to Oak Mountain State Park. We spent an afternoon here last summer visiting with some friends that live nearby in Montevallo.

Oak Mountain has a little of everything; Boating, fishing, camping, swimming, golfing, horseback riding, and of course hiking.

Like our last hike at Chewacla, we did a combination of trails on this trip to try to see and/or do everything that we wanted to. A trip back to the Peavine Falls was in order.

This is the most physically difficult hike that we have done so far. Like last weekend's hike at Chewacla State Park, we actually hiked portions of 6 different trails. The main trail, the Green Trail or Peavine Falls Trail, was only about 1.5 miles long, but rose over 1,000 feet in that distance.

We started off today in the parking area adjacent to the park office. From there, we took the Wildlife Center Trail south through the first set of enclosures to the Yellow (Foothills) Trail which we followed west until it met up with the Green (Peavine) Trail. Up to this point the trail rose and fell about 200 feet. At the point where we picked up the Green Trail, the trail climbed over 600 Feet over a span of 1/2 a mile. At the top of the mountain, the trail turns west and runs along the top if the mountain for a while before it turns south again and drops steeply down towards Peavine Falls. It ends just a short ways away from the falls. We picked up the white trail going west which takes you to the top of the falls. After spending a while visiting the falls, we followed the white trail south and then west where it climbs up and circles around back to the top of the falls. From this point we retraced our original route back to the car.

The weather was sunny in the low 70's with little humidity. It was rather warm, but there was an intermittent wind which cooled us off just enough. Another perfect day for a hike. The set of trails we hiked today was about 3.94 Miles total and took us about 3 HRs to finish.

The paths had some severe level changes and there were a lot of obstacles such as patches of loose gravel, rocks, stumps and roots. We would suggest you wear hiking boots as the gravel and rocks were tough on the feet. Because of the steep incline we ran into in places, it would be a good idea to have a walking stick to help you keep your balance, especially on the downhill slopes.

We are very proud of everyone on this hike. It was a tough one for the girls and definitely pushed our older bodies quite a bit. It was not as bad as we feared though. The previous hikes were definitely an advantage in getting us prepared for this one.

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Overall Difficulty: 8/10

Park Entrance Coords: N 33 19.202, W 86 46.703
Park Entrance via Google Maps: Park Entrance

Park Office Coords: N 33 19.603, W 86 45.370
Park Office via Google Maps: Park Office

Peavine Falls Lower Trailhead: N 33 19.494, W 86 45.478
Peavine Falls Lower Trailhead: Lower Trailhead

Peavine Falls Parking Area Coords: N 33 18.153, W 86 45.714
Peavine Falls Parking Area via Google Maps: Peavine Falls Parking Area

More Trail Information (PDF): Oak Mountain Trails