Harris Lake Public Programs

The hunt is on during this high-tech "treasure" hunting game, where park visitors come equipped with GPS devices in search of hidden geocaches! The geocaches located in Harris Lake County Park are hidden containers that have been approved by park staff and placed on park property for your exploration and enjoyment. Geocaches can be of varied sizes and hidden in easy to difficult-to-find places. Use GPS devices to help find these hidden containers and then record your find on the paper log provided in the geocache. Some geocaches have little items, such as toys and stickers, that you can collect and replenish as you play, so the activity can be a real "treasure hunt." This activity can be self-guided by getting coordinates from Geocaching.com and bringing your own GPS unit, or you can participate in one of our scheduled “Geocaching 101” public programs.

To learn more about geocaching, watch this short introductory video created by former Park Manager Christina Hester.

NEW in 2025!

There is a new addition to the Harris Lake County Park geocaches! Our newest cache is part of the Cache Odyssey, a nationwide geocaching journey which brings a unique, highly creative letterbox geocache to every state. These caches are specifically designed with everyone in mind and are fully accessible for those with mobility concerns. We are so honored to be the site of the North Carolina location for this cache as part of the East Central Region Geo Tour! If you're interested in finding this new cache, type "Cache Odyssey - North Carolina" in the geocaching.com search engine!

Placing a Geocache
Geocaching on Wake County Park property is handled on a park-by-park basis. Please visit a specific park's website or contact them directly to learn about their geocaching policies.

Geocaching is an accepted recreational activity at Harris Lake County Park. The park maintains a maximum number of caches on park property. Those wishing to establish a new cache must receive approval from Harris Lake County Park prior to placing a cache. Please contact us at harris.lake@wake.gov or 919-387-4342 for more information.

If you love the outdoors, exploring and map reading, then orienteering is for you! Orienteering is the sport of navigating through an unfamiliar area using a map and perhaps a compass. The object is to make your way through a series of points identified on a map and return to the finish line in the shortest amount of time possible. The route of your journey is up to you.

Orienteering is sometimes called, “the art of map and compass reading.” This fun outdoor recreational activity dates back more than 100 years and uses “low-tech” tools to navigate the landscape. Often set as a timed challenge, orienteering is a fun way to exercise and build wilderness survival skills. Finding the points and markers is a sort of “treasure hunt” for participants of all ages.

Harris Lake County Park’s Orienteering course includes a short course (5 waypoints) and a long course (16 waypoints) that navigate you to different parts of the park, including wooded, field and play areas. They are accessible at all times of the year that the park is open. You can use our Harris Lake County Park Orienteering Course brochure as a guide for getting started, as well as our printable course sheets to fill in the points as you find them. Each point has a rubbing – try to collect them all!

Orienteering Short Course (5 waypoints)

Orienteering Long Course (16 waypoints)

Take a mobile tour and see the park through a new lens!

Harris Lake County Park has three interactive cell phone tours that you can access from home or while you're at the park. You can access each tour from its hyperlinked title below.

Local Tree Loop
This tour was created to introduce some of the special trees we have in North Carolina and help you identify them in the future. This tour follows the paved trail around the Educational Garden and begins at the Cypress parking lot side of the garden.

Educational Garden Tour
Along this tour, you will learn about some of the history of the park, some of the plants in the garden, and great ways to help wildlife in your backyard.

Cypress Tree Trail
Test your knowledge and learn more about some of our common trees.

Red Fox Run Interpretive Trail
Discover more about the plants and animals found at the park.

Womble Interpretive History Trail
Explore life on a farm as you learn about one of the families that lived on the property before it became a park.

Mobile tours have also been developed for other park sites and you can view them all here.

For more activities you can enjoy from the comfort of your home, visit Harris Lake From Home and find all of our Wake County Parks From Home pages at Wake Parks From Home.

Take a self-guided StoryWalk^® at Harris Lake County Park! A StoryWalk^® is a children’s book that is presented page by page along a trail or path. It combines the pleasures of reading a children's book while enjoying nature. Every other month, the paved trails in our Day Use (shelter) area or the paths in and around our Educational Garden and Natural Play Area will feature a different illustrated children's book. Interactive activities are included at the bottom of each set of storybook pages to further engage your child as you make your way through the book. StoryWalk^® will be available during current park hours.

The StoryWalk^® Project was created by Anne Ferguson of Montpelier, Vermont, and developed in collaboration with the Kellogg-Hubbard Library. StoryWalk^® is a registered service mark owned by Ms. Ferguson.

Our May StoryWalk^® at Harris Lake County Park is: Be Nice to Spiders, written and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham. It is available from May 9–31 and follows the paved trail through the Day Use area beginning at the traditional playground. 

Parents and teachers, would you like to enhance your visit to the park? Our four new Adventure Backpacks contain self-guided educational activities complete with instructions, equipment, guides and take-home activities for further enrichment.

Choose from the following offerings:

• Birds of Wonder Explore the wonderful world of birds! Go birdwatching with binoculars, learn how to keep birds safe, practice your worm-hunting skills and more!
• Bug Out! Be an insect investigator! Go on a big hunt to safely catch insects, discover how to create insect habitat in your own backyard, play a game to move like different insects (Can you fly like a dragonfly? Scurry like a roach?), and make a fun craft and insect-themed snack with take-home activities!
• Exploration Learn how to be a nature detective as you explore the park! Participate in a special challenge to decipher clues as you visit different areas of the park, make your own scat and more!
• Journey to the Past Embark on a journey to the homesite of a family who lived on this land before it became a park. Play games of this bygone era, go on a scavenger hunt, try your hand at our "history mystery," and use props to play make-believe at the Womble family wash house!
   

Adventure Backpacks are located in a bin at the Park Office building (first right after you enter). Stop by anytime during park hours to sign one out and begin your adventure!

These programs allow older children to explore nature on a higher level and are designed for them to attend on their own, without parent participation.

Interested in becoming a citizen scientist and improving your nature identification skills with park staff? We’ve got the opportunity for you! Harris Lake County Park is an ecoEXPLORE HotSpot, which means it’s a place where you can make observations of plants and animals and share them with scientists! We'll be offering a quarterly opportunity to explore the park with our staff in search of a certain taxon, or group, of animals or plants. We will add our findings to the park's Natural Resources Inventory Database, which records our wildlife diversity, so we need you, citizen scientists!

Harris Lake County Park periodically offers programs and workshops for adults and older children/teens, many of which are eligible for NC Environmental Education Certification or CEU credits.

*Check back for more information!

Do you like to explore parks and preserves? Do you like winning prizes? Our Junior Park Explorers program is for you! Learn more here.