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.
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