January 28, 2015

I rode the pink highlight to the best of my drawing ability.  This is marked on map 729 for the National Forest. 

*Add 1.3miles and 20minutes to the calculations

The weather was a little inclement Friday night into Saturday morning, but the roads were clear, the grass was mostly just dusted.  So I decided to go for a new trail t adventure.  I picked a local area that had paved road parking available and headed up Marshall Run 235.  This fire road wraps quite a ways back into the forest and splits in two directions at a closed gate.  Its a rough drive up with very few areas for passing.  Not the most comfortable drive with a horse trailer.  But there is turn around, although a little tight, and parking at this split.  This is not something I am sure I will consider driving my trailer on a nice day, so I decided to try Clover Lick Run 731, which is much shorter and ends at a three way split.

Part way up Clover Lick is a trail that crosses the creek and heads off into the forest.  I believe this is a trail I rode with a friend some six or so years ago that loops around and back to itself.  I decided to stick to Clover Lick and headed up to the three way split.  Straight ahead works its way out of the forest and to private property.  The left branch does the same.

The branch to the right starts as a pretty clear trail, marking very diligently in orange marker tape and spray paint.  Eventually the trail became heavily leaf littered, but the orange markers made it easy to follow.  This was also true as I climbed higher along the ridge and into a frosted wonderland.  All of the trees, branches, brush and leaves were coated in a layer of pristine ice.  On occasion a light breeze would pass by, allowing some small ice bits to *tink tink* to the ground.  Simon’s hooves crunched along, and I sat looking around in wonder.  It is the one time I really wished I had a real camera along for the ride instead of just my little pocket point and shoot.  It did not even come close to catching the magic wonder of the forest.

Sadly the orange markers disappeared.  I was nearly to Clover Lick Knob, but with the leaf litter and ice coating, I did not feel comfortable pushing on with no markers.  I did find one orange piece of tape on a branch on the ground.  It would have created a switch back, and there was a big of an over grown trail it led to, but it trickled out shortly.

I was getting a bit chilly after walking along the ridge top for so long, and decided it was time to head back.  Annoyingly my iPhone turned off, presumably from the cold, on my ride back.  My calculation adds about 1.3miles and 20 minutes to the ride after what the app recorded.