2/4/11 Park Loop Road

A beautiful sunny day. All the new snow made planning a little more difficult. We didn't want to do trails that hadn't had traffic ( I don't like wearing snowshoes) and the snow, in many spots, makes getting far enough off the road to park difficult at many trail heads. We decided to start from the parking lot on Otter Cliff Drive. This marks the end of the loop road section that is kept open in winter. We preferred the closed section ( no leash for Kelley) but if there had been no one on it we could walk along the open and plowed section to Sand Beach-still a nice walk. Someone had been through on a snowmobile so we took the closed section.





Kelley was very happy with this route, running up and back he track and then bounding through the soft powder along side.










We hiked to the trail head for Hunters Brook and found, as suspected, that no one had been on that trail lately and we turned back the way we had come.


The small amount of traffic and the weather had conspired to leave us a track with a crust but not a very firm one so we got a bit of a workout trudging through the snow. We also got an illustration of the old adage about being careful what you wish for. As we walked along I hoped for another snowmobile to pack the snow firmer for us. A snowmobile came along and passed us but instead of making the track firmer it chewed up the crust that was there making the surface softer than before. Still a nice hike -3-1/4 hours