Forsyth trail hike

 I read some details about this hike:  

Distance:  11-11.5 miles round-trip (out-and-back) if heading up to the crest/summit Trail junction.

Elevation Gain:  3,400 to 3,600 feet.

Difficulty:  Strenuous ("butt-kicker") due to the steady, steep incline.

We only did 6 miles of it (out-and-back) because Paul's foot isn't ready for more...and neither am I!  We got plenty of elevation gain in just the little bit we did.  I think it was about 1,400+ feet in that distance.  Paul wanted to turn around because it was hurting his foot quite a bit.  We did two hours in and got back faster than that going downhill.  I think our time was from 9:30 - 12:30.  Afterwards we had a nice picnic at the Pine Valley Heritage Center.  We were so happy to see that only about the first mile of it shows bad scars from the fire.  After that it was greening up and just had patchy spots of fire damage.  After that first mile there was water in the stream and springs all along the way.  We only saw a few other people.  I loved seeing all the different flowers blooming at different elevations along the way. We saw some that we'd never seen before.  It was a good day, but it really drained Paul.  

Pine Valley Picnic and erosion

It was a last minute thing.  It looked like it was raining up in Pine Valley, so we changed our plans, grabbed our stuff and food and drove up to have a picnic.  It had rained, but was done which was good so we could eat outside at the Heritage Center.  Then we went down and got ice cream.  After that we decided to walk up the road a ways into the valley and see how they were coming on digging out the lake.  The rain from that day had been doing more erosion damage.  Until some plants start growing over on the burned areas, it just keeps on washing down and causing so much damage.  So very sad to see this beautiful place in  such bad shape.  The dam is washed out, the lake is just a place full of sludge right now that they are trying to clear out, but it keeps filling up.  Rocks keep getting washed down the hills from above.  It's going to take several years to restore it to something like it was before.  There are still a lot of trees that survived at least.  It was still a lovely picnic with the fresh rain washed air.