Tiger Bay SF Buncombe Hill

1) What It's Like

Strap yourself in - we're pissed off about this one.

There was a big forest fire here in the 90s so it's pretty short oaks - scrubby oaks under slightly taller oaks. The signs and maps are very confusing - suggest bringing something to sort out GPS location without cell signal. Also it can get pretty hot so bring water... especially if you get lost.

2) Kinds of Birds

Turkeys, some water birds.

3) Wildlife

A fair number of deer. Lots of deer tracks visible as well.

4) Amenities

Malevolent maps and signs. Picnic tables. There are camping, fishing, and equestrian areas in the forest as well.

5) Directions

Approach on US92, reconsider, turn around.

6) Dear Ranger

I'm not going to get into this deeply because it's exhausting.

• You paid for numbered signs. If you put any of those numbers on the maps - problems solved.
  
• Since this is a get-lost prone area the choice of GREEN blaze was something. I mean who won't circle around looking for the trail and not spot the green paint in the green forest? Also the numbered signs are green and at waist height in the scrub.
  
• I spent a LONG time at home with my GPS track, satellite maps, and your maps until I figured out why this trail took us HOURS to escape in a VERY hot time of the year. I'm writing this quite a bit later but I think what it was was it was very easy to assume you were going clockwise when you were really going counter clockwise. The only point of reference you could check was that a road crosses it - except it crosses both sides. We decided to cut it short and turned to skip the last bit of the trail on the (VERY VERY HOT) road... but we ended up walking a double the length of the trail on that miserable road before we figured out where we were - no cell signal so gps didn't really help. We both were pretty miserable for the next couple days from heat exhaustion.
  
• I'd suggest you burn that arrow sign and if you can't put any numbers on any maps you stick those green on green numbered markers... in a trash can.
  
• It would be SO EASY not to make this simple little trail miserable - I'll edit your PDFs and send them back to you if you'll accept them.

7) Time Requirements

For us - I think it was 4 hours. Should be like 1 - it's a 2 mile trail. The whole forest If you wanted to walk all the roads etc I'm making a wild guess at like 20 miles of it from the map. I'd highly suggest you DON'T walk those roads... just that you could in theory.