However, having hiked it, I take back the "easier" description that I mentioned above...
It was a cold day and was raining pretty heavily in our drive out to the hike. This location is in the middle of the city, which is a bit odd, it's like a strip of forest and you never really stop hearing the highway or seeing houses up along the ridge. It was also still snowy and slushy which made the hike a bit more of a challenge than we anticipated.
However, we did press on and persevere and as always, I continue to be fascinated by the moss on all of the trees that remains such a vibrant green even when there's snow all around.
The guidebook did describe a split off of the main trail that you could take to see a waterfall (given the landscape I can't imagine it's very impressive), however the path heading in that direction was closed and we didn't feel like pushing our luck.
There were itty bitty signs of spring along this trail, which was nice to see, but the general area didn't have many evergreens, which made it seem more bleak than our other hikes.
Lots of these signs:
And a dead mole.
We reached the end, where the coal mine is supposed to be and saw some interesting things at that point.
The entrance to the mine. It's been filled in and has collected water, but it's still pretty neat to see.
Jeans were a mistake...
Amusingly enough, we walked past this falling-down shack without seeing it the first time past.
And I was amused by this sign.
So thoughts over all... There is a LOT of up and down on this trail, and in the winter with the slush and snow the footing was just terrible. I never felt secure and I think it made the steep sections seem worse than they were. Plus, it always takes more effort to trudge through snow than just mud or dry ground.
We'll probably not go back. I wasn't terribly impressed.
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