I was way off-trail today but on the way down, when I was finally back in familiar surroundings I passed a hiker going up with her 3 (one is behind her) goats. Cool!
I thought yesterday I might be hiking with Derek today – he is my off-trail bushwhacking companion – but he couldn’t make it so, perhaps unwisely, I stuck to my plan.
I had long noticed, on topo and other maps, that a very old and de-commissioned logging road came near the McClellan Butte trail. I had previously discovered where, on the McClellan Butte trail the former road came relatively close, and on yet another occasion I learned where the old road intersected the road designated NF110, up and down which I and Derek had hiked previously.
So I thought I had figured it out.
Not so much.
I went up the McClellan Butte trail and, just short of where I planned to start route-finding, I stopped to snap a picture of the neighborhood:
There were also some very nice flowers right there:
Immediately upon leaving the trail the going was rough. Right there were a series of large trees that had been cut down and left to decompose. Nice to look at but not easy getting over.
When I got over all the trees I was headed towards an unfordable creek (Wood Creek, according to the maps) so I had to bear right and try to find the least obnoxiously overgrown path. At this point, I knew the former road had petered out; I was looking to intersect it.
I assumed it would be de-commissioned but, having seen quite a few such former roads, I figured it wouldn’t be too bad. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
When I finally found what, according to my Gaia mapping/tracking app told me was the former road, there was nothing to see. At one point there was a faint outline of the olden days:
Getting back to a normal trail (NF110) was a long series of back-and-forths and looking for traces of the old roads. At one point I wound up getting turned around and went in a circle. My track reflects my confusion but, fortunately, Gaia bailed me out.
I was very happy to get back to a real trail and even happier to leave the bushwhacking behind. At one point, I had to cross Wood Creek, hopping over slippery rocks while trying to fight off closely overgrown bushes peppered with very nasty prickly needles. Glad I am that no one was around to hear my curses.
Once I got back to NF110 it was fine, not exciting, but a nice long walk back to the car. I got to see the wonderful mountains to the north:
Here is the strange track:
About 7.5 miles, 2,500 feet of elevation gain. I made it back so it’s all good!