Paradise Park Trail #778 is 95% repaired

[Chip Down]

Not to be confused with the PP loop trail up high, this is the low trail that accesses PCT and PP.

There was an immense blowdown event of epic proportion maybe a couple years ago. Retired Jerry asked in a recent trip report:

Did they ever clear out the section of the Paradise Park Trail, near the Zigzag trail junction, that was obliterated by fallen trees?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: All sources indicate it's still impassible. But I don't mind a little bushwhacking, I have a high level of determination, and I was willing to accept the possibility of failure, so I set off for a PP hike yesterday. Although it hasn't been publicized, I ran across one obscure online reference to a work crew on that trail a month ago, so I hoped it would be complete, or at least enough to make the workaround tolerable. Sure enough, when I arrived at the blowdown zone, it was a breeze. But after quite a while, the repaired zone abruptly ended at a big log that looked like people had been climbing over it. On the other side, I spotted a faint trail and flagging, but it was way too difficult to continue. I dropped into a gully to my right, which was fairly clear. I was able to follow it up without too much trouble. The brush was saturated though, and soon I was too, soppy below the waist. After just 10-20 mins (?) I saw something shocking: trail. It crossed the gully. I was lucky: if a tree had fallen on the trail here, I might have missed the trail, and I would have continued up the gully believing the trail was still to my left. Grateful, I followed the trail up, and found it to be in pretty good shape, no worse than one often encounters in the wilderness. There were a few trees to go over/under, and the trail was overgrown with Huckleberry bushes, but no big deal.

On the way down, when I came to my gully, I followed the trail down, knowing it would eventually become unpassable, but I knew the difficulty would be a short stretch. Imagine my surprise when I found smooth sailing all the way back to the point where I had given up on the trail and headed over to the gully. It looks like maybe they re-routed the trail through easier terrain (less work than cutting dozens of logs). At that point on my ascent, if I had just looked around 360, I would have seen the switchback.

[Aimless]

Hurray for trail crews!

[retired jerry]

thanks

there were a lot of trees across trail, major job to remove them, thanks to trail crew

maybe it would have been easier to re-route trail