Today’s hike was pretty much a “get out in the woods and enjoy a beautiful winter day” hike. My goal in retirement has been to hike twice a week and with recent weather, I’ve been having a tough time making that goal. I don’t mind hiking in a little rain, but it has been exceedingly wet the last week or two. The weather broke so I wanted to get out and do a hike. I hadn’t been on this trail for a while so this seemed like a good option. Instead of driving to the end of the horrible 4611 road I opted to take the old North Fork trail to the junction with Huxley lake and then head north. It was an interesting day.We started out a little later than usual since it was just Thor and I. We made it thru the confusing sets of turns to get to the 4611-136 spur. At some point in the past the 4611 road was re-routed – the road only appears on the official district map – every other map I’ve seen shows the old alignment. They show part of a very old spur that the trail crosses, but not the 136 spur, and some maps don’t show any roads in that area at all. It is all very confusing.

We got to the trailhead and I was surprised to see a bit of snow along with recent tracks on the 136 spur. This is what the trailhead looked like:

The beginning of the trail was a bit brushed in, mostly because of the moisture on the trees I think. It could use with a bit of brushing though. We headed up the trail and I was happy to see it wasn’t in too bad of shape. There were a few logs down and a lot of branches, but overall it wasn’t too bad. This trail was kind of abused by quadders in the past, so much of it is pretty wide, although much of the double track is fading.

When we got up the trail a little farther there was this nice view of the sunshine on the trail:

The trail crosses a couple of creeks and there is a spring or something that crosses the trail – It looks like this kind of blew out – I’m guessing in the rainstorms in December:

A bit further down the trail we came to our first real creek crossing of an un-named creek:

After making that crossing we continued on and soon came to our second un-named creek crossing:

We made pretty good time on the old North Fork trail and soon made it to the junction with the Huxley Lake trail. It joins at a spot where the trail takes a hard turn to the northeast – it is actually a very prominent junction – not hard to see at all.

We continued up and got to the swampy area where the trail down to Huxley Lake comes in. Thor automatically took the right trail which kind of surprised me. We headed down to the lake – the trail was in pretty good shape – just a few logs down over it down to the lake. We continued on the trail around the lake – I saw a potential old campsite but I couldn’t remember exactly where it was so we continued across the outlet of the lake and I got this different view of the lake

At that point I realized the first campsite was the “real” campsite and we headed back. That campsite suffered some burn damage a number of years ago and it is obvious no one has camped there for quite some time. The view of the lake from there is getting harder to see clearly due to all the small trees growing in.

We stopped there for an early lunch since it seemed to be a good stopping place. After lunch, we packed up and headed back up the hill. On the way up the hill, I noticed a huge tree that was next to the trail. It has been down a very long time and has a couple of logs growing on it – a huge nurse log:

We continued up the trail and soon arrived at the spot where the trail joins a very, very old road (the 4612-120 spur). It ws in here where we started to see evidence of recent maintenance:

A bit further up the trail we got to see exactly how recent it was – someone signed and dated their work! – Jan 1 2026 – just short of 2 months ago:

Just after this point the trail starts its very steep ascent. I’m almost positive the current route of the trail is not the historic route of the trail. I’m sure it used to have more switchbacks on it, but when the quadders were using this trail, they just headed straight up the hill – so that is where the trail goes now. It is very steep in spots.

We continued up the hill until our turnaround time. We almost made it to the spot where the trail starts to level off a bit. I was wondering if we’d be able to make it up to Lookout Springs but I wanted to get back in a timely fashion, so we turned around and headed down.

The trip back was mostly uneventful, however at one point near the junction with the old North Fork Trail, there was this cool mossy vine maple that was arched over the trail:

As we headed back, I continued to throw more branches off the trail and do some minor maintenance. We got back to the truck about 2:30. It was still pretty cold at the trailhead and the snow was still pretty firm. The truck said it was 30 degrees. We packed up and headed out. On the way home, we surprised a lone deer on the road which was kind of cool.

It was a beautiful winter day on an interesting old trail. Great way to spend a sunny February day!