Trail Talk – September 2015

It’s often said that what trail hikers love the most is running streams and trail loops. Of course right now, in this super dry spell, running streams rarely exist, and won’t until the fall rains return. The good news is that in the Forest Park, there are some short parts of Jackson Creek that keep running all through the hot months, including a part of Cantrall Creek coming out of the mined cave below the quarry and Jackson Creek, just below the dam and reservoir by the main kiosk.

In addition to running water, Forest Park offers lots of trail loops—just check-out the twenty-four miles of trails which often cross each other. The trails system has been carefully designed for hikers and runners to set-out from one of the six parking areas on one trail, and come back to the same parking area on a different trail…a good definition of a trail loop!

One popular loop plan is to start at the kiosk in parking area P-1, hike-up the Rail Trail, cross the bridge over to the shortcut up to the hill to the Ol’ Miners Trail, and go back down to P-1 on Ol’ Miners—a loop distance of two miles. The modest 200-foot elevation gain makes this a popular loop. Recently, a trail runner told me she had parked at parking area P-3 to start her loop run. She chose to run up Twin Peaks Trail, then turned on the level Atsahu Trail to its intersection with Shade Creek Trail, and then downhill on Shade Creek to P-3 and to her car, for a loop length of three miles and an elevation gain of 450 feet.

At this time, a 3-mile loop (blue diamonds) is already marked and ready for runners and hikers—look for directions and maps at the kiosk in the main parking lot. And, going forward, Forest Park volunteers are designing new trail loops, most of which will start and end at one of the parking areas. They will be marked with colored blue diamonds at the start and end of the loop, at every one-half mile interval, and at intersections with other trails. Enjoy the Forest Park!