So this time from the trail head we walked up the road to the campground then took the trail from there over to Little Beacon Rock.
Its a neat little area if you haven't seen it before!
From here we continued on to the trail junction with the Hardy Mountain trail. Next on our list for the day was to find the old cabin / falling down shed that is just to the West of the Hardy Mt. Trail & North of the power lines. We left the trail right after walking under the power lines & headed up hill. When we were still within sight of the trail we heard a call of "Hello" from below, Looking down it was Spitfire beginning what would be a marathon day & it wouldn't be the last time we would see her!
The Bushwhack up to the Cabin was pretty easy going as bushwhacks go & we soon found what was left of it!
The curious thing is it seems at one time it had electricity! maybe the owner had a few hundred feet of cable & a couple of alligator clips connected to the closest Pylon
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Rather than return the way we came we decided to continue our bushwhack westward over to the equestrian trail system. This started out very well, in fact I'm pretty sure we were on more than a game trail for much of the way, more like an old time use trail that had been forgotten about, there was still the remains of some old brittle flagging tape along the way.
I'm not sure if we just lost the trail or it faded away (I'm pretty sure we lost it) but about a quarter of a mile before the main trail up from the equestrian trail head we found ourselves in lots of scrubby Vine Maple & I made the mistake of heading NW when I should have stayed on a more Westerly line.
We spent about 15 minutes more than we should have thrashing around in the brush before emerging on the equestrian side lower loop trail just past the Hardy Ridge East / West trail junction. From here we hiked along the old road up to the Hardy Creek crossing & then on up to the Dons Trail Junction.
It was raining a bit by now so the shelter of the trees on Dons trail was welcome.
When we got up to the Saddle it was still too early for lunch & we needed a couple of extra miles & so decided to hike the short loop North of the Saddle on the old logging roads. Where the East & West Ridge roads come back together there is a short spur road up to a clearing that is at almost the same elevation as Hamilton Mt (2400'). There used to be something up here but now it's just a flat open space!
We returned to the Saddle on the East side road which I thought was a bit more interesting than the West. we went through a grove of old Hemlocks including this one which has completely rotted out inside but is still alive!
Once back at the Saddle we headed for the Summit of Hamilton, the rain had stopped & there was even the occasional sun break!
Until this point we hadn't seen too many other people but that soon changed, there was a steady stream of people doing the Hamilton Loop & there must have been 15 to 20 people on the Summit when we got there. We didn't hang around!
as we began heading down from the Summit we saw Spitfire coming up the trail towards us, she was on her third Hamilton Summit for the day & it was only 1:15
On the way down we decided to take the alternative cliff top trail, there are some cool extra views this way but if you don't like steep drop offs you shouldn't go this way!
Looking back up at Hamilton we could see Spitfire again powering down on her 3rd. decent.
Once back on the regular trail it was a just a quick hike down & past the Falls & on to the trailhead.
The parking area at the trailhead was like it used to be before there was a Discover Pass - Full! They even had to dust the cobwebs off the Car Park Full sign and set it up
..With the side trips we had just shy of 11 miles & just over 3000' logged for the day.
We finished off our outing at the Cascade Locks Eastwind Dinner with our first Ice Cream of 2013
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A few more pics of the day here & a map below.
Click to enlarge map.
