It appears that I am still way behind on my trail-blogs. And while it seems just a bit strange writing about the trail adventures of last springtime, in some ways, or on some level, there may be some slight advantage to waiting this long, kind of like allowing a bottle of wine to age so the flavors can mellow out somewhat. Although this may sound like a ‘Steinbeckian justification’ and the blogs may be untimely in their publication, hopefully the subject matter, the mountain adventures themselves, will still be considered ‘relevant’. While I actually wouldn’t mind heading down to Perelli’s for a bottle of wine, or two (I am sure Pilon has got some good stories to tell), there are several trail adventures to tell you about, so let’s get on with it.
‘The Waterfall Tour’…
‘The Waterfall Tour’ is the name ‘Rat Patrol’ came up with over 20 years ago to describe the loop hike from Sill Branch around to Devil’s Fork, stopping at every waterfall along the way. Although some of the trails were primitive, even back then, during the old ‘trail club days’, this was a very popular hike, and we walked it several times with many people; some of these adventures were ‘epic’. Originally, when the loop hike was first conceived, it was a 12-mile hike to see 5 major falls bordering the Sampson Wilderness Area, but after learning the mountains a little better, we found enough shortcut trails to lessen the mileage to around 9.
Middle Devils Fork Falls aka Josiah Falls