Today’s hike was intended to be a snowshoe trip. The plan was to take the Fanton trail (a favorite snowshoe destination of mine) as far as we could. Kirk had to get back for a family event, so it was a shorter day. We still have Otis so he came along for the trip as well.

We started at our usual time and headed to the trailhead. We got to the turnoff of 4613 (where the bottom end of the trail starts) and there was zero snow, so we continued up 4614 to see if we could get to an access point further up the road. Unfortunately, about a half mile up the road, the snow started very abruptly and it was the wet, sloppy snow that is difficult to get traction in. We decided to turn around and start at the bottom.

When we got to the trailhead, there as a jeep parked there and we thought maybe someone was ahead of us on the trail, so I leashed up the dogs. We got suited up, put our snowshoes on our packs and headed out. There was absolutely no snow at the beginning, nor most of the way along the trail. The beginning of the trail starts its ascent but it was in good shape – no downed logs. About 3/4 mile up the trail, it does its first road crossing, the 4614-150 spur road:

There was probably 18-24″ of snow on the road but once you got back into the trees, the snow disappeared again. We continued up the trail – it goes thru some flat areas, along a couple ridges, and kind of goes up and down – but more up than down. At some point we were looking at the few patches of snow we came to see if we saw any recent footprints (the Jeep) – we didn’t see any, so I unleashed the dogs.

About halfway to our turnaround point, we got to the point where the trail joins an old road that does not appear on the map. The trail follows the road for a bit, goes back into the woods, gets some decent views to the south before heading back into the woods. Here is what part of that old spur road looked like – probably 12-18″ of snow on it:

We continued along the trail – I’m not exactly sure where these next two pictures were taken, but it was a spot where we had a nice view south to Whalehead and Bull of the Woods:

This picture is a nice annotated picture from PeakFinder of the same view:

Shortly after those pictures were taken, we arrived at another landing – I’ve always called this “the corner” because the road kind of parallels the trail until this point – at this point the road takes off north. We walked up to the landing – the spur road probably had 2 feet of snow on it and it was pretty soft. This is one of the only areas where snowshoes would have been helpful. We struggled up the road to the edge of the landing. The hillside down from the landing was mostly free of snow. The brush that is normally on this hill was all knocked down – not sure if it was because of the snow or what – there were also a bunch of mountain beaver holes on that hillside – Kirk thought they might have been eating the brush.

Given the time it was, and when Kirk needed to get back, we decided to make this our turnaround spot. We stopped for lunch and I flew the drone a bit. This is what the landing looked like:

Here is the 360 photo from the landing.

While we were eating, Thor decided to dig a hole – not exactly sure why – if it was him creating a “nest” or if he smelled something and was trying to get at it:

After eating we headed back out – I decided to put on my snowshoes for the walk down the spur road so that it wasn’t a TOTAL waste of effort to bring them. I walked down the spur road in relative ease with my snowshoes on. Where the spur road joins 4614 is where the trail joins – this is the point I removed my snowshoes. I also decided to take a picture of what 4614 looked like at the corner:

The trip back down was pretty uneventful – we made good time since it was more downhill than uphill. We got back to the truck right at 3:00, which was what we were shooting for.

We felt a few drips here and there, but the day was essentially overcast and dry (other than the snow melting). It was a great day out in the woods!