Raccoon Woods Trail

The Raccoon Woods Trail is a short but very scenic trail through the southern section of The Nature Conservancy’s Green’s Bluff Nature Preserve in Owen County. HHC Bring Your Own Tool volunteers worked almost every Tuesday from June through September of 2020 to complete this nearly one and a half mile loop trail. This is an excellent trail for spotting migrating birds in the spring and admiring colorful leaves in the fall.

After starting in a clearing where TNC has planted rows of oak trees, the trail winds through deep woods with many mature oak, beech, and hickory trees. As it descends into steep ravines, the trail crosses spring-fed creeks. Climbing out of the ravines, it offers views of the forest canopy. At the far end of the loop, the trail dips into an open area where TNC is attracting birds and insects with pollinator plantings. Other interesting flora include partridgeberry, spotted wintergreen, and occasional purple fringeless orchids.

This section of the Green’s Bluff Nature Preserve is south of the more familiar area near Sherfield Road, where the older Bluffs Trail highlights the sandstone cliffs above Raccoon Creek. It’s just a ten minute drive between the two trail heads, so why not visit both trails while you’re in the area?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a Google map showing the location of the Raccoon Woods Trail, south of Spencer and west of Bloomington: