Blue Rock Springs Trail

Penny and I went back to Blue Rock Springs Park Trail to map additional trail segments we did not have the time or legs for in our last trip.  We started off at the trailhead at the end of Ascot Court, behind the fire station there.  We headed left at the T section near the trailhead and ascended up the switchbacks up the hillside.

Then the trail just seemed to die out.  Someone had applied herbicide to the trail surface up to some point and just stopped.  A faint single track seemed to go forward and we followed it.  Then that disappeared.  We were looking for a path continuing uphill to rejoin the general area on the higher trail where we previously had hiked.  There was nothing we could see even though we know there was a trail junction higher up that we had passed weeks ago.

Since the hillside is all grassland it's easy to not get lost, so we just hiked in the general direction of the higher trail which we could clearly see.  While doing this we watched a paraglider take advantage of gusty winds as they walked uphill and then glided down multiple times.

We eventually made it to the Blue Rick Springs Park Trail and spotted the trail that joined with it that we had intended to walk up.  We'd figure out what was going on there later.  In the meantime we stuck to the high trail and continued west just below the ridge.  Eventually this trail turns north and begins to parallel Highway 80.  The trail comes to an abrupt stop at a padlocked fence.

We turn around and decide to take one of the lower trails we had spied on our hike higher up.  Near a small ravine we spot a large bone and see other bones a bit further upstream.  There we spot pieces of almost the complete skeletal remains of a cow.  A little farther down the trail we came across the skull.  We'd never really encountered nearly complete cow skeletons on trails where cows are present before.  Later on along the same trail we'll see yet another set of remains.

Like our earlier experience we found the trail just faded away into nothing.  So we found ourselves once again walking across open grassland in the direction we needed to go.  We came across our original starting point at the switchbacks.

We were not ready to call it a day so we went right at our earlier T section near our starting point.  A sturdy bridge indicated this was a trail into which some effort was put.  Again, it just sort of disappeared.  But this time we looked more closely at the metal posts and boards that used to mark the edges of the trail and we discovered this made a small loop just behind the firehouse!

At one point this loop had a gravel surface and the boards kept the gravel in place.  Dirt and grass have largely covered up all sign of the gravel, which has become more buried over time.  There's even a small platform that was set up for a viewing spot near the apex of the loop.  Who constructed the loop and why it fell in disrepair is a mystery.

Still not done, we tried to find the path that should have brought us up to the high trail.  We walked along the slope looking for the elusive path.  Finally, we spotted a very rough, eroded trail that was often hidden by foliage and followed it up to the high trail.

Now we turned around and followed that connector trail as far as it would take us.  And it dumped us out right on the loop we had completed earlier.  How did we miss it?  The loop trail at that point had the path with herbicide so it was very clear and easy to follow.  So we missed the subtle, not so obvious, trail that went off to the left.

To help others, we collected a few loose rocks and piled them up at the trail junction.  So if you follow in our footsteps just look for the rock cairn.

With all of our ambling about we logged almost 6 miles of hiking.