The black dotted lines represent the service road and trails not on the modern map and are approximate
This was another attempt to find the abandoned trails to McFarland and Youngs that branch off of the Breakneck near the ponds-numbers 359 and 379 on the top map. This time we started from a trail we had done that runs from the air quality monitoring station on the service road and up to Mcfarland. The middle part of the trail gets hazy but once you attain the ridge it is easy to follow and is very nice.
We had hoped to find the top end of the trail but after about an hour of searching gave up and walked back down. We did find another trail down ( it even had cairns) that came out about half way up the service road.We then walked up the Breakneck to the area the old map shows as the start and did find a trail which we followed awhile but it eventually faded away and though we stumbled around the woods looking for a continuation, we did not find it. Kelley kept looking at me with a 'why aren't we on a trail' look so we went back to the ponds so she could have a swim and cool off and have lunch.
Almost back to the car we met a USDA crew setting out traps containg a fungus that is supposed to kill fire ants and got some recommendations for deer fly repellants. A little frustrating but still an interesting hike. 3 hours
Fireants....ouch!
ReplyDeleteFrom Europe rather than S. America and not as aggressive.
ReplyDeletewe ran into the same problem when trying to follow the trail from the breakneck road end, will be giving this another attempt from the air quality station end, would love to do the hike over Mcfarland and on to Youngs Mountain.
ReplyDeleteGood luck - let us know how it goes - We couldn't find the route to Youngs after that first time
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