At the last minute, Hunter and I decided to join some friends at the 1st Full Moon Hike of 2016 at Harrison Bay State Park. We got a late start and had to drive carefully because the roads were a bit icy. We ended up finding the trailhead about 5 minutes after the Ranger and other hikers had started the hike. Some other Rangers and a teacher-friend from Wallace told us to go ahead and they would follow behind in a few more minutes. "Just keep right" they said.
About 150 yards in, the path Y'd off...we kept right. The path was a bit muddy and had some cool ice formations. We couldn't seem to catch up to the group, but we were enjoying ourselves. About 3/4 a mile in, there was a loop to the right...it looked like it just went over to the water and came right back to join the trail, so we just stayed straight and didn't waste time with the extra loop.
We walked and walked and walked. It got dark...it got muddy. It got muddier - like shin deep icy mud, with briars being the only way around. Then it was totally dark and so muddy that we thought we lost the trail. I began to regret coming without Jason. Hunter was getting antsy, but soon we found the trail again and soon found a trail marker that said 1.8. We kept up a good pace and saw that the markers were counting down.
We finally made it back and the Rangers were at the entrance wondering how they never passed us on the trail. After some discussion, we realized that we were supposed to take that 2nd right and loop back around the way we came in! The "straight" we took was really a left and went to a 4 mile mountain biking path! LOL! What an adventure...I had to get Hunter a milkshake on the way home, for his pain and suffering. ;-)
Before we missed the "right"
Cool ice formations on the ground
Green=path we should have taken (they made two laps)
Red=path we took
One of the first muddy areas...definitely not the worst!
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