The bridge is crossable; the trail a bit less so

<< A Visit to the Spruce Railroad Trail

11/20/07 - A Visit to the Lake Angeles Trail

The Lake Angeles Trail is open, but there are lots of logs down thanks to last week's wind storm. The park service has cut some of the logs near the start of the trail, but clearing the trail is still low priority with so many roads out. Still, we managed to get up to the little river crossing about 700 feet above the parking lot, or around 2600 feet above sea level. We considered going farther, but as you can see in the picture to the left, there was a big log down right before the bridge. (That log is about three feet in diameter). That probably wouldn't have stopped us. There was a good crawl space under the log, but the bridge was covered with snow, and we didn't have our Yak Trax.

That whole section of the forest was blown down

Just for pretty - snow on a log
There wasn't any snow at the trailhead, but about 300 feet up we saw our first signs of winter, a light frosting alongside the trail. The trail itself was largely clear, but there was more snow as we ascended. Now and then we could see a thin layer of snow had settled on the canopy of the forest, which is partly why there was so little snow on the ground. There were a few downed trees blocking the trail, but most could be stepped over or walked around. There was one spectacular root mass that had pulled out when a tree right next to the trail had fallen downslope. All told, signs of wind and signs of winter.

This tree toppled recently and took some of the trail with it

Keywords: lake angeles, winter, trails, little river