Today’s hike was my first hike in almost 2 months – I’ve been resting my knee after the arthroscopic surgery and was finally able to get out and do some real hiking again. Zack was originally going to go but had to cancel, but he wanted to “go somewhere we haven’t been in a while” and it looked like we could make it to the lower trailhead for Huxley Lake, so that was the target.

I started thinking about the hike Kirk and I did about 5 years ago, on the old trail heading east over to Huxley Lake and I thought it would be interesting to use that trail – maybe trying from a more established starting point (we started at Winslow pit and didn’t find the trail for a bit). It was supposed to start off the 4611-136 spur so we tried to hike north from 4611 up to that spur. One thing we’ve found when hiking this area is that the roads are all mixed on – some maps don’t contain roads, and many are not in the location shown on the maps. The 136 spur does not appear on the CalTopo quads but is only on the district map – but it appears in the wrong spot.

We started a bit early as Kirk had to get back for dinner and it was supposed to snow more the later in the day it got. We started out a bit earlier than normal and soon got to our starting point – where the 4611-018 spur intersected 4611 – but it was obvious this had not been a road in quite some time:

We struggled thru the woods, following this “road” – Kirk eventually found a trail that headed up to the 4611 road eventually. Just north of the road there was this landing at the end of the road:

We headed east on the road which then took a slightly northern turn. Kirk explored in the woods for the trail and I continued on the road looking for a junction. At some point I knew I had gone too far, so I headed into the woods and headed east. I figured I’d either intersect the trail or I’d eventually intersect Huxley Lake.

As I was going thru the woods, I encountered Wilderness Signs Galore – there were a LOT of these:

And blazes along the Wilderness Boundary!

Although it sort of looked like trail, at some point I realized it was taking me the wrong direction. I started heading due east and slightly downhill – I figured at some point I’d hit the real trail. By this time, I wasn’t sure where Kirk was, but I figured we’d catch up soon. After some cross country travel, I finally found the trail – a very nice trail. I had been calling for Kirk for a while with no response. I didn’t see any footprints in the snow on the trail, so I headed back west a bit. I continued calling and still didn’t hear anything so I thought maybe I’d just go back to the junction with the Huxley Lake trail and wait there.

A little while later Thor seemed really interested in something – like he heard something – a little bit later I heard some crashing above me and I called out and it was Kirk. He had decided to follow my footprints after making a small loop earlier and not finding anything. He came down tot he trail and we continued east – the travel was MUCH easier than it had been since we left the road! A short while later we crossed this interesting little un-named creek:

Shortly after that, we got to the junction with the “real” Huxley Lake trail. It was after noon so we decided to stop and have some lunch. It snowed a bit off and on, but was mostly dry. It was pretty cold though, so we didn’t spend too long eating lunch before we headed down the trail to the lake. It wasn’t too long before we came to the small clearing where the junction is to the lake. We headed up the wrong trail for a short bit but soon realized our mistake and turned around and headed down to the lake. As we were headed down it started snowing more. It wasn’t too long before we were at Huxley Lake – and it was snowing:

We walked around the lake to the only real campsite – last time we were here there had been a recent underground fire (probably from a campsite that never got put out)- But I don’t think anyone had camped here for a while:

Near the campsite was this interesting scene – Skunk Cabbage blooming right alongside new snow:

He hung out at the lake for a little bit but we had decided this should be our turnaround point, both for time and also since the snow was getting harder and it was getting colder. So, we turned around and headed back up the hill. As we were headed back, after we turned west from the junction with the “real” Huxley Lake trail (I think this segment of abandoned trail was part of the old North Fork Trail), Kirk some pictures of how nice this trail really is – it is amazing it is abandoned, but I’m guessing part of the reason it is in such good shape is due to the quadders that used to use it as well as the Huxley Lake trail:

A little farther down the trail, Kirk remarked at a large tree below the trail – I had to go down and investigate because it was a REALLY large tree – you can see my hiking pole for reference, but I’m guessing it was an 8′ diameter tree – it most likely survived the last round of big fires in this area:

We walked the trail out to the spot where it pops out on 4611-136:

We then walked down the 136 spur to where we had come in but we didn’t want to go back exactly the same way. Kirk opted to just head down a relatively open path down to the old spur around Winslow Pit – it was MUCH easier than the way we came up. Once on that spur we headed back down to 4611 and back to the truck.

It was a day filled with a whole variety of weather – sun, snow, fog, wind and cold. It was great to get back out in the woods, although I could feel I hadn’t been too active for the last 2 months! I need to get back into shape!