Today’s hike was planned to be one of the few trails we have access to due to the Riverside fire. Originally we were going to do the White Iris trail, but we decided to head up the old abandoned Bissell Trail to the Old Baldy trail. The weather was forecast to be very good, unlike last weeks hike that was rather wet and cold. We didn’t really have any plans on what do do – just wanted to get out into the woods.

We started out at our “normal” time since it is a relatively short drive to the trailhead. On the way there, we decided to switch from White Iris to Bissell and I’m glad we did. I didn’t take a lot of photos since we ended up doing quite a bit of trail maintenance on the Bissell trail.

Once at the trailhead, we quickly got suited up and headed out. Before we left I had to get a shot of my truck parked at the trailhead (I love this truck):

We headed up the old spur road (or whatever it is), and soon found the real tread. It was easy to follow for a while. It heads uphill pretty aggressively. We got to the spot where it joins with a side trail out to the 4614 road. This spot is no longer accessible via vehicle since the road has been bermed off. This is what the end of 4614 Road looks like:

After heading back up the trail, we struggled for a bit to find where the trail continued up the hill. I headed in one direction and Kirk headed in another – I found the trail farther up the hill and he found where it took off after the junction – we then connected the pieces together and did some clearing so it was much clearer where the trail went.

We got up to a flat spot and had a hard time figuring out where the trail went. After a bit of searching, we found it again and did some more clearing. I added a couple flags for clarity as well. We continued up the trail, lopping stuff off, pulling small trees, etc. in order to be able to follow the trail easier. We continued doing maintenance for a while. At one point I looked at my watch and it was already after 1:00. We were within about a half mile of the junction with Old Baldy and decided to just head out there, stopping our maintenance activities.

We had a few rough spots but followed the trail out to its junction with Old Baldy:

From there, we decided to head up to the ridge to see if we could find any views. We didn’t really find much in the way of views, so we found a large log to sit and eat lunch. We ate lunch and then decided to follow the old trail route (there were blazes all over the place along the ridge) until it met up with the Old Baldy trail. While we were able to follow the blazes, there was really nothing in the way of discernible tread. We soon got to the junction with old Baldy and since it was only about a quarter of a mile, we decided to head up. It appeared there had been a lot of blowdown recently and we were wondering if maybe it opened up more of a view from up on top.

We headed up the trail and soon got to this enormous bundle of blowdown:

We found a few more on the way but we worked our way thru or around it and were soon on top of Old Baldy. Unfortunately, there is still really no view from up there. It seemed to be somewhat more open than what I remember, but there were still no views.

We didn’t spend a long time up there since the days are short this time of year and it was already after 2:30 already, so we headed back down. It wasn’t long before we got back to the Bissell junction. We turned and headed back down the Bissell trail. We started doing more maintenance, making the trail more evident and wider. It wasn’t too long before the clouds started to come in and it started to get noticeably darker. At that point, we decided we needed to stop doing maintenance and just head down the trail so that we made it back to teh truck before it got dark (sunset was at 4:28).

On the way down, I stopped and had to take this photo. I just liked the tread in this picture:

We made it back to the truck about 4:15 – just a little bit before sunset. We loaded up and headed out.

On the way home we decided to stop at Fearless for dinner – it was different today due to COVID restrictions – we had to eat outside. It was a bit cold, but it was nice to end the day in traditional fashion.

A great day out – I’m guessing I will e re-visting this trail again soon partly because I don’t have too many options right now, but partly because it is a very cool old abandoned trail.