Monday 12-6 Hiking the East Loop Trail

 

Lost Maples hiking trail map

A front blew in early this morning. At 7:00 we had a light rain, it didn’t last long.

Being without internet changes the way we usually do things. Larry gets up around 6:00, he does his e-mail,  posts my blog, reads a few blogs and the news, he also goes through Facebook. So without the internet when I wake up he was reading on his Kindle. You don’t realize how much your life revolves around the internet. When traveling the most difficult part is not being able to check the weather forecast. Years ago the weather was posted everyday somewhere in the campground, normally either a ranger station or a bulletin board near a restroom. Not anymore.

I made breakfast and then we went on a 6 mile hike. We walked the main road to the day area, which was 7/10 of a mile. Today the parking lot only had three vehicles. There are two trail to choose from, the East Loop and the West Loop. We decided to do the East Loop Trail. We hiked the trail from the sign to the Maple Trailhead. Then we picked up the green trail, which was the East Loop. The trail at the beginning is moderate but halfway you had to hike up the hill and it was very strenuous. There was a warning sign that said for the next 1.5 miles the trail will be strenuous. During the hike we crossed over creeks that flow into the Sabinal River using rocks or just walking through it because it wasn’t deep. You had to be careful because the trail had loose rocks. Where the trail was strenuous we had to climb uphill and over boulders. There were loose rocks everywhere. We did this until we got on top of the hill where it flattened out for a bit. After hiking flat land for about a half mile the trail got strenuous because it was time to climb down the hill. We took it slow because it was very steep and we had to contend with large boulders and loose rocks the entire way down. The trail took us by two Primitive Camping Areas and the six points of interest. The points of interests were Monkey Rock, Grotto to listen to the water flowing over the maidenhair ferns, Scenic Overlooks with beautiful vistas of the surrounding areas, Ponds for fishing and two springs. We only saw a few people hiking; two ladies at the beginning, two more ladies at the Primitive Camping area and three more people at the end. We finished the hike at the overflow parking lot, which was great because it shortened the hike about a half mile. We had a super hike.

Monkey Rock

Hiking down a steep hill

Sabinal River

 

 A grotto 

 

Standing in front of a fishing pond

Larry in front of the pond

To finish up my steps I ended up walking around the area multiple times, it took me a couple of hours to complete my 27,600 steps. Larry finished a book and started another. I did some Sudoku games. We had a super day.