Grant's Trail? ... may never recover!
The first 200 m or so of the trail off Stanrock Road was a little messed up but only hinted at the destruction we were about to face. The worst of it came as we contined on the right-hand trail at the fork by the first "Grant's-Trail" sign, expecting our beautiful trail to be in tact.
Not very far along was an unexpected tangle of trees and brush laying thick across the trail. Determined to find the trail again on the otherside, we managed to find a couple of challenging ways through it, noting that there seemed to be other pockets of destruction scattered rather haphazardly all around the area. We did find the trail and made it some distance before being faced with a second, somewhat less challenging, barricade of felled trees. Once on the other side, the group decided to push on in the hopes of that being the last of it.
As we rounded another curve where the trail was evident but showed signs of heavy equipment traffic, we discussed whether it was worth pushing on. At this point we had made it a third of the way along the loop in just under an hour!
Decision? ... cut our losses and retreat to take the other fork of the trail to enjoy our break on the cliff overlooking Rye Lake.
The day was itself was great, the break on the cliff was lovely, the teamwork in finding ways through the messes was wonderful, the experience of seeing a beloved trail destroyed - not so much! All were puzzled as to who did this, for what purpose??? It really didn't seem to have an evident plan.
Perhaps we can salvage a trail from this by using only the left hand trail at the fork as an in-and-out access to the shore of Rye Lake, where, in the past, we had stopped to enjoy the view... or do we need to consider naming a different trail in Grant's name?
