Nebraska National Forest: Spotted Tail Loop Hike

 Nice weather was in the forecast for today, so I decided to get out of town and go for I hike. I opted to head up towards Chadron and hike in the Nebraska National Forest on the Spotted Tail Loop Trail. While we got a really small storm with minimal snow a few days ago (which is already melted), the Chadron area got much more snow than we did. I hadn't done any research about this, and so I was pretty surprised to see snow on the drive north. When I arrived at the trailhead, I found myself in a veritable winter wonderland.

I hit the trail and opted to hike the loop in a clockwise direction. 

The area I hiked was heavily burned. With snow covering the ground you might think it was difficult to follow the trail, but luckily, there were plenty of posts to mark the way.

The trail followed the bottom of a small canyon for a bit, then ascended out of it. The trail also passed through multiple gates.

Slowly, the trail started to ascend up to a ridge. The views out over the surrounding landscape were pretty amazing.

At a junction, I decided to follow a spur trail out to an overlook.

The view from the overlook wasn't really any better than the views from other spots on the ridge. I continued to follow the ridge for a bit.

I crossed a dirt road and found a memorial on the other side.

Then, I started to descend off of the ridge as I made my way back to the car.

By this time the temperature was really warming up. The snow was melting fast and was very slippery. I was happy to end the hike when I did. On the drive home I stopped in Alliance to pick up some crowlers from Brewery 719.

Nebraska National Forest: Road/Water Loop Combo

Today Noelle, Sierra, Rosie and I drove north up towards Chadron for a hike in the Nebraska National Forest. We drove through Alliance and into the forest near the Pine Ridge Job Corps. From there, it was a nice drive on gravel and dirt roads to the Cliffs Picnic Area and Trailhead. 

We had intended to hike a loop I had found on AllTrails called the Canyon Loop. However, I found the trail system a bit confusing and we ended up hiking a combination of two different loops called the Road Loop and the Water Loop. 

We hit the trail by walking a short section of road,

crossed a cattle guard (I had to carry Rosie across it) and then along a true trail that followed a fence into the ponderosa pine forest.

The hike alternated between deep forest and open meadow.

Once we had reached the top of a ridge, there were nice views off to the lower elevations and distant ridges.

After a little confusion, we found ourselves at a signed junction with another old road. We turned left here and after a short distance the road ended and we were on a singletrack trail. Again, there were lots of great views.

We eventually descended down to a small creek and decided to follow the creek upstream for a bit.

Noelle found a really nice deer skull off to the side of the trail.

After hiking upstream for maybe a half mile, we ascended away from the creek. Sierra was tired at this point, and so we stopped to eat a snack.

After our short break we climbed steeply up to an old road.

At our next junction we turned left and started to make our way along a grassy plateau, back towards the car.

Arapaho Bend Natural Area

With nice weather forecast, and the fact that we haven't been out of town in a little while, Noelle, Sierra, Rosie and I headed south down to Fort Collins for a little adventure. I wanted to go for a hike, but recent snow that is now melting, forced many of the trail to close down temporarily. Today, we opted to hike down along the Cache la Poudre River at the Arapaho Bend Natural Area. We parked at the Harmony Road Transfer Center for today's hike on a combination of paved and gravel trails.

We started our hike on one of the gravel trails, walking along the edge of one of the ponds, a former gravel pit.

The trails were a little bit muddy, but not too bad. For the next section of our hike, we opted to walk a section of paved trail. There were lots of views west to the mountains, with Mount Meeker and Longs Peak particularly prominent. 

Soon, we found ourselves at the ruins of the Strauss Cabin. There's a sad story associated with this building. It had been restored back in 1999, and then a few months later burned by arsonists.

From the cabin ruins, we followed the paved trail around the east side of the Rigden Reservoir, 

then we followed a wide, gravel path along the west side.

Once we had made our way around the reservoir, we opted to hike the gravel paths back to the trailhead. We passed more ponds, covered with ice.

We also walked along a short stretch of the Poudre River.

We admired a few interesting looking cottonwoods,

before returning to the car at the Transfer Center. 

We spent the rest of our day at Twin Silo Park and in Timnath. We had lunch at Backyard Bird: Chicken and Donuts (I enjoyed the Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich) and got a couple of beer at Timnath Beerwerks.