January 2014

Black Forest Trail (revisited)

 

 

Highlights:

• Park at Slate Run and camp at the trail head behind the Manor Hotel and Restaurant (This is after we hike up the ice sheet of a road where a truck was abandoned, and bushwack down the side of a hill towards the river just to walk back up and find the trail head). Set up tent at 1230am.
• Have to hike around the town because the river crossing bridge was missing.
• Awesome Vistas!
• Get to first camp site around 4pm, only to find a "No camping sign". Decide to hike an additional 2.5 miles to alternate spot.....on ice sheet road.
• Had to bushwack down another hillside because we missed a trail head (this is where Steve lost the map).
• Had a lame fire but got 3 inches of snow overnight.
• The day of days.....hiked perhaps the most difficult and dangerous hike to date. Straight up a frozen hillside. Crawled, hung, prayed. We actually had to use ropes to get out of some tight spots.
• Got to second camp spot....but it was lame (car camping). Had a nasty river crossing too.
• Decided to hike another 2 miles back into town. Got some hot food and drove home late Saturday night.