Exploring

I went wandering today after the beginner's taiji class, mainly to see what the status of Gibson Jack was, but I made some interesting discoveries along the way. Normally, I go down Benton to Arthur, turn south, and then Gibson Jack Road is on the right eventually. Today I figured that, well, second goes south too. Surely there's a way across the railroad tracks eventually. Yes, I could have been wrong, but it turns out I was right. Second eventually turns into Cheyenne, which then meets up with the Old Bannock Highway.

More interesting, though, were two trailheads that were prominently marked. They both seem to be part of the Portneuf Greenway. The first one encountered, going south, is Kirkham Trail. The link isn't very informative; Kirkham is one of the few trail there you can't zoom in on, or else my browser is screwy. The second was the Edson Fichter Trail. There's more info here, including that it's paved and goes around/through a wilderness area. It's not really a hike when it's paved, but after driving up to Gibson Jack, paving might be good over spring break.

So, yes, I did make it back up to the Gibson Jack trailhead. The road was bonedry right up to the "No Winter Maintenance Past This Point" sign. Then there was slush, and snow, and mud. I made it up to the trailhead, but decided that I didn't want to hike until things had dried out a bit more. Besides, Jean Luc isn't really at his best in mud. It wasn't soggy enough that my car got stuck, though that was definitely on my mind, but it was soggy enough to discourage me from going back for a while. So there's always the two trails on second! (there may be a few more there as well, also parts of the Greenway)

ADDENDUM: I forgot to mention that there were five or six deer on the south slope across from the rode when I drove up. If they were still there when I drove back down, I couldn't see them. Doe, 6 deer, 6 female deer; ray, the sunlight on the hill; me, a name I call myself; fa, a long long way to fall... *stops*