Yesterday was the most beautifully forecasted day of the week.
One of my mom's friends had posted some pictures from this hike, and she was eager to take it on. I packed my daypack, took a few Motrin for the pain in my neck, and picked her up. We see her often to bring her groceries, fresh bakery and to check on her. She's a part of our family unit.
The mistake that we made was thinking that since the Haven Hill Project is a part of the Highland Recreation Area, it would be easy to find.
It is not.
After driving the full length of the park, we headed back towards the entrance to look for clues. As nobody is working, there wasn't anyone at the booth to ask.
We had our best luck asking another hiker who told us to head back towards the back of the park, and if we got to the horse barn, we went too far. It's the parking lot before the horse barn.
For your reference, it's the parking lot in the first picture, labeled Circle Lot.
From there - you walk to and down this service drive to get to the start of the hill. There is no parking on this circle drive, but you'll drive right by it as you park your vehicle.
At the end of the circle drive, you'll see this gate and know you're in the right place.
We knew that it was a climb to get to the project. We met an older couple coming down at the gate here, and asked the how far and how hard.
The woman had she known how hard it was, she wouldn't have done it - and that she thought it was two miles.
The man said it was more like a half mile.
In this case, the man was more accurate.
Also, I have no idea why my mom is holding her walking stick like that, I only know that she couldn't have done this hike without it.
I only brought my point and shoot on this adventure, and I don't know if you can see him real well there, but this owl flew in and landed as if to mock me and ask if I wished I had my zoom lens.
I was content. It would have been a rough hike with the zoom.
I find it hard to really capture the height of hills in photographs.
There were a few others here and there.
The woman at the bottom of the hill had told us that just when you think you can't climb anymore, there is a bench on the side of the road.
After that bench, the project is just around the next corner.
I had told my mom not to come down the steps - that I would go see what was done there. This was it, mom.
The lodge burned down in 1999, so this is what remains of the main lodge.
They had markers that helped us to visualize where the bedrooms, linen closets and entryway were.
Behind the lodge, there was a trail.
Because we knew there was also a swimming pool, this was our best guess. This trail was steep, and mom was again glad she'd brought her walking stick.
The pool is not visible from the lodge, so we were adventuring on instinct.
And there it was!
From the pool, we could see this.....pond? We also took note of several other hikers walking around it.
We decided to venture on that way in hopes of finding another way back the car that wouldn't have us climbing back up that hill we'd just come down.
On the other side of the pond, we found our first trail marker.
One thing about the trail markers is that they weren't at every intersection, and they only signed one direction. We were clearly walking the trail 'backwards'.
On one unmarked intersection we had paused, and bumped into another couple that asked if we knew where we were. We hesitated in our response enough that she pointed us in the direction of the parking lot. We knew where we were, but I had mentioned that my AllTrails app wasn't really doing it for this trail. She mentioned that she had felt the same way and was having better luck with REI's trail app. I'm going to have to look into that.
Either way - we did feel confident in our backwards sign reading skills, and we were exactly where we thought we were.
Our route in full was 2.5 Miles.
We went from P
To 5
To 7
And then to 10. We followed a trail, but there is clearly no trail listed on the map from 7 to 10.
From 10 we went 9, 8, 3, 2, 1, 32, 27 and back to our Parking Spot.
Between 8 and 3, we stopped for a coffee break.
To make a hike a five star hike, one must have coffee and snacks along the trail. Trail coffee is SO good.
We came out on the side of the horse barn. This is the barn that if you're looking for the trail head, if you drove this far, you went one parking lot too far.
The picture above was taken after we came off the trail, crossed the street, and took the roadside trail back to our car.
It was just a short jaunt from there to our parking lot, just over that hill.
It's a hike that I'll do again. The boys are curious now.
I'm imagining that it's gorgeous in the fall, and it would be interesting to see it again when the green fills in.
That's all I've got.