Today’s trip was intended to be a short day – the only real objective of the day was to see if we could catch the white iris in full bloom – I’ve seen them blooming before but I’ve never been able to catch it at the peak bloom. There are white iris everywhere on this trail, especially up higher, so if they were in full bloom it would put on quite a show. We were up here about 10 days prior and they had started blooming but were not in full bloom yet. It is a pretty short drive to the trailhead, so I thought it would make for an easy day.

We headed out at our usual time and got to the trailhead pretty quickly. We suited up and headed to the beginning of the trail. Someone had recently hung flags on either side of the trail:

That typically isn’t a good idea, especially in this area since there are so many motorcyles – the flags are kind of an invitation for them to ride up the trail. One of the reasons we usually leave one or two logs near the beginning of the trail – to discourage motorcycles especially.

We headed up the initial aggressive ascent – part way up there was a bunch of these plants, which I wasn’t sure what it was. I took a picture and a plant ID app said it is False Lilly of the Valley:

We continued our climb up the hill and soon got to the area where the majority of the white iris are. They didn’t seem to be blooming too much more than they were about 10 days ago, but they were still pretty:

After we turned the corner and started heading north there was a section of Vanilla leaf that was starting to bloom:

As we proceeded up the trail, there was this sunny spot in an area where the canopy had been thinned out (old fire?):

We made it up to the 4614 road crossing and I had to take a picture of the un-named creek that the trail follows for a bit:

We headed up the trail and soon got to the junction with the Old Baldy trail. It was still early and I wasn’t really ready to head back down yet. I decided to head up to where the Old Baldy trail has an access point – right near where the Eagle Creek cutoff trail connect. Before we headed up to our turnaround point, I noticed these two well blazed trees that mark the east end of the White Iris trail. What was interesting is that I never noticed the arrow on the tree to the right – I wonder what that was about?

We headed up the Old Baldy trail, enjoying a beautiful day on a beautiful old trail. This portion of the trail is the “older” section that is more Indian trail – it follows the terrain more, so there are lots of ups and downs. The only switchbacks really are the “snake” switchbacks.

After a bit, we got to the access point – I looked around a bit and turned around. On the way back, I stopped in an area not far from the access point where we turned around. It is an pretty open area – I noticed what appears to be an old triangle on the ground:

I’m thinking this might have been an old helispot – it would explain why the trees were cut in there, and that triangle looks like what I’ve see at other helispots – the only thing I didn’t see was the typical yellow plastic “tape” that outlined the triangle.

After looking at that interesting spot, we continued our trip back. When we got to the White Iris trail junction we headed down it. Not too far below the junction there is another old junction where the trail was re-routed when there was a cut done. You can still see the junction if you look carefully and most of the tread is still completely intact. It takes you out to the 4614-187 spur road landing. We’ve gone out there before, but today it was a good place to eat lunch. After lunch, we headed back down to the current trail and it wasn’t long before we were back at the truck.

It was a short, but extremely enjoyable day out on a beautiful old trail. The only thing that could have made it better is if the White Iris were at their peak. I may try one more time this year to try and catch them.