3/27/14 Glenburn Misadventure

Sunny but 20 degrees and a bit windy. Wanted to explore the area of the end of the #2 trail we had passed up last time. Decided to give us more time by parking off Lancaster Brook Rd. where it looked like the snowmobiles had packed an area we could park on. I pulled off the road and almost immediately got stuck. Tried some sand I had in the trunk but it didn't work. Within just a few minutes a truck stopped on the road and then a car going in the opposite direction. Two women got out of each vehicle and came over. to help. They all got in front and pushed us right out. Yeah! Thank you ladies. We drove back to the store we usually park at and began from there.

The trails were still in very good condition and the woods still pretty.

We turned off on the memorial trail

and took it to what we thought was the fork leading off to the area we wanted to check out. . This quickly became a little used and rough trail

and then ended in a circle

Back to the main trail and continued on that, thinking we would at least find the other trail we didn't find the other day ( # 7) and complete that loop . The trail turned and followed some power lines and after awhile we were next to a neighborhood and lost.  We stopped a mailman but he was new on the route and not familiar with the area. He had a smart phone with GPS but apparently wasn't very familiar with that either and again couldn't point us in the right direction.

The smart thing would have been to just retrace our steps and return the way we had come but we decided to work out another way back, hopefully finding the #5 trail -- at no intersection or other place on these trail are there any signs or marks identifying the trails. After much wandering ( I'll spare you the details)  we found ourselves at Pushaw Rd. crossed it and found  the trail we had originally thought hooked up with the trails we do from home. It did! but would take us in the wrong direction. Back into the woods and we made a circle and ended up back where we had been. A little used side trail led us to a store and more directions that did not work out. We then walked beside the road to another business and a man who knew the trails- his uncle was the one the memorial trail was named after. He also told us the reason we had lost our way in the area we were exploring was that our map was old and that trail no longer existed.  I was worried about Kelley by this point and the easiest route would be to walk the road to the #5 trail, which we did and from that point we were no longer lost. Both of us had lost our enthusiasm for this hike and when we hit Hudson Rd. , walked it back to the store to save some distance.

This may have been our longest hike yet - 6  1/4 hours