McCormick's Creek State Park, Spencer, IN: Trail 7 (& a little Trail 10)


Yesterday afternoon was perfect hiking weather, so we went over to McCormick's Creek State Park (about 15 minutes from our house) with our friend D. We wanted to do something we hadn't done before, so we decided to start with Trail 10 and then go on to Trail 7. We parked at the Wolf Cave parking lot (trails 10 and 7 start on the other side of the street from Trail 5/Wolf Cave).

Trail 10 starts off by taking you down several flights of steep stairs.


At the bottom of these stairs is a sign saying that Trail 10 continues across the creek. The water was still pretty high (it is spring) and Eric and D could have made it across without getting too wet, but my legs are super short and I'm not good at jumping onto rocks. There was a fake trail off to the left that we followed for a while...


...until Eric studied the map a little closer and figured out that there must be a trail back toward the stairs. He was right. When you come down the staircase, there is a little path off to the right -- that is actually Trail 10. Take that unless there is an easy water crossing.






We continued down Trail 10 (very pretty - lots of spring wildflowers!) until we hit another water crossing. This trail has 4 water crossings. The one below looked possibly doable, until we watched a couple of guys in front of us cross. They both got wet feet (the guy below took his shoes and socks off; that also looked not very fun), so we decided to head back and just do Trail 7.







On the way back Eric climbed a tree across the creek to get to the other side, just for fun. I think almost every time we've been to a small creek like this he has gone across it :)



The steep stairs we had come down earlier had to be traversed back up. It was rough. 


Trail 7 is a lot less strenuous (mostly because there aren't any large stairs to climb, unless you want to get onto Trail 10). It follows the rim and, at least in the spring, you have a great view down to the creek below.



This is a view of where we tried to cross the creek (the second crossing).




There is some elevation to deal with (here we are going down) - remember that every time you go down, you'll eventually need to come back up.



We did try crossing the creek one last time, at the 4th crossing of Trail 10. The other side of the creek here has the Old Quarry. Eric tried to find a path across but the water was just too high. Maybe we will try coming back in the summer to do this hike, when the water is lower.







We continued on Trail 7 for the rest of our hike. Trail 7 is about 1.7 miles total and we did about 2.7 miles with both 10 and 7 (lots of backtracking).




Trail 7 follows McCormick's Creek all the way out to the White River. I cross over the river every day on the way to and from work, and it was fun to be right next to it.




The rest of Trail 7 leads back up to the rim and connects back to the pathway following the creek, and goes back to the parking lot (it's a loop with an extended line, so you'll double back a little bit). I really enjoyed this trail.
McCormick's Creek State Park, Spencer, IN: Trail 7 (& a little Trail 10) McCormick's Creek State Park, Spencer, IN: Trail 7 (& a little Trail 10) Reviewed by Maria on 8:00:00 AM Rating: 5

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