Getting to the trailhead at just after 7:00 p.m., I knew we were going to have to hustle to finish before dark. Our book suggested the 1.5 mile hike would take one and half to two hours. I was hoping for more like one. It started off very nicely. Pretty soon we encountered mosquitoes. Having lived east for much of our lives, mosquitoes are certainly nothing new to us, but they do take some of the enjoyment out of the experience. Thankfully, the trail later mover farther from the creek and the biting subsided. About 45 minutes in, it began to seem that this was not a 1.5 mile trail, as we had just made a turn back west and began hiking uphill.
As our elevation increased, the scenery changed. The aspen trees surrendered to Ponderosa pine and Black Hills Spruce. Sadly, the pine beetle epidemic which has plagued the Black Hills was very evident here. Thousands of trees were brown and dead. The Forest Service had cleared huge swaths of trees and left them in massive piles every few hundred feet. It's hard to imagine what the Hills may look like in a few more years as this problem continues to spread.
Concerning as the damage was, Pamela and I had more pressing issues. The sun had already disappeared below the mountains and dusk was setting in. What's more, some unsettling weather had rolled in from the south. A light rain began to fall and lightning could be seen in the clouds overhead. Weather experts always recommend climbing a wooded mountain during thunderstorms, right?
Finally, we could see highway 244 and figured we must be getting close. But as we reached every hilltop and rounded every curve, we saw the trail winding on in front of us until...we didn't anymore. It wasn't that we were back at the trailhead. We had entered a large cleared area, and in the mess of downed trees and bulldozer tracks, the trail had disappeared! We suddenly found ourselves in a most delightful situation - we were lost in the forest during a thunderstorm with only a few fleeting minutes of daylight remaining!
Thank the Good Lord we discovered our road just below. We quickly abandoned the search for the trail, and after a hop down an embankment, the car was in sight. Surprisingly, we reached the car little more than an hour after we left it. We survived our "life-threatening ordeal" without any major incident. We did, however, learn a couple good lessons. One, checking the weather more closely might be a good idea. Even better, don't start a hike after 7:00. I hope we don't have a repeat of this hike during the next 50, but it was one we'll surely remember.
One final note: For anyone else considering hiking the Willow Creek Trail, you may notice in our stats below that it is more than 1.5 miles, as we suspected. I don't believe our detour added any notable distance.
Total Distance: 3.22 miles
Elevation Gain: 948 feet
Max. Elevation: 5,309 feet
Total Time: 1 hour, 4 minutes
Moving Time: 53 minutes
Average Moving Speed: 3.6 mph
Pamela took the lead as I snapped photos.
The cave where mountain lions no doubt wait for unsuspecting hikers.
Fortunately, we had air support.
The mighty Willow Creek in all its glory.
These scenes were much too common on this particular trail. The pine beetles have done significant damage to these otherwise majestic trees.
In the last mile of the hike, we passed dozens of piles like this.
An entire hillside of what should be green is brown and dead.
This tree had a diameter of nearly three feet.
This time it was my turn to tackle the "highest" peak.
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