Sunday was perfect weather for an off-trail adventure and with a little urging, I even got Kelly to come along. Normally, she's not too keen on salmonberry, devil’s club, blackberries and nettles but I convinced her that at least the nettles shouldn’t be a problem.
Along the road below Women's Forum:
We started out with a short hike down the road from Women’s Forum to see if we could find a car Bobcat told me about. It was in the brush just a few feet off an old user path from the road so that was a nice start for our day. This is the ninth car that I’ve seen off that road though I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were more hiding in the brush. This last is a 1954 Pontiac Chieftain 4 door sedan, if you were wondering.
This encouraged Kel to do a little more hiking down the road to check out some of the other wrecks and we visited the old Studebaker rusting away at an old home site and admired the rest of the relics in the area. We saw another six couples as we walked the old road.
Not satisfied with only a couple miles of hiking, we then headed up to Brower Road to see what delightful relics might have appeared since our last visit over five years ago.
Voila! A new find presented itself right away after less than a quarter mile of hiking. A slightly used 1999 Ford F-250. A little bondo, some tires and a little cosmetic work and it’ll be good as new!
We continued on into this beautiful forest and enjoyed three miles of peaceful wandering along ancient roads, a section of steam-era RR grade and just a little bushwhacking to finish up a great Sunday afternoon.
At the site of an old trestle, lots of hardware that once held it together:
The ghostly remnant of the ties and ballast along the RR grade. The ties are long gone but the ballast remains:
95% of the hike looked like this:
5.1 miles total and 668’ EG for the day. Hike # 13
