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Like a lot of other areas, they were hit hard by the Dec. ice storm and the trails were officially closed
Before heading out we stopped by the office and spoke with Mr. Ranger Sir and were told that the 'closed trail' signs were for liability reasons and it was fine to use the trails, just don't expect them to be in good shape....He said that they'd like to get started clearing the park's 60 miles of trails before camping season starts, but chainsaws and snowshoes don't go together.
We headed out on a trail called the Old Florida Rd.....sounded good....but the further along we got, the worse the conditions were. Skiing up hill is hard enough. Skirting around blow-downs is even tougher.
As it turned out, the Florida Rd was deeply rutted and not only were there recent blowdowns but the upper part of the trail probably hadn't been cleared in 10 years
It was extremely slow going and after 3 1/2 hours on the trail, and less than two hours of daylight remaining. we were less than half way along, through the loop.
My partner wanted to slug it out in hopes that snowmobilers had broken the trail out up further. My plan was to bush wack a 1/2 mile over to another, hopefully better trail.
We went with my plan and thankfully it was the best decision we had made all day.
The bush wack was down hill (
) through a valley with very few blowdowns, and we had no problem finding the other trail even though it hadn't been broken out all season.The new trail was in very good condition compared to where we'd been and we made it back to the truck just as the sun was going down over the ridge. Extremely tired but happy to be not spending the night in the woods.
According to the GPS we had only traveled 4.8 miles and it took us over 5 hours.
It was an adventure that I'd like not to repeat.
Next time I'll pay better attention to the 'trail closed' signs.
