entrance to Paul's Portal trail off the lower road. Note the pink (but overexposed in this shot) flagging on the tree above Clay's head marking the trail turn off.
View from the overlook at the bottom of Paul's Portal trail.
This area begins the mixed Ponderosa/fir tree forest (see large Ponderosa behind Clay's head?). Mila is excited about that!
Orion added a lot of youthful enthusiasm to the trail project. Here, he is at the intersection of Paul's Portal, the overlook trail, and the rest of the "Southeast Passage" trail.
trail covered with yellow leaves winding up from the overlook onto the new sections of trail Paul has located and marked up this summer.
One of the several little clearings that can be found along the way. Still remnants of fires past evident in some locations.
It's not so much a trail, as it is a corridor. But, there's always a way through on the Southeast Passage.
This section took a lot of work to get cleared, but makes a nice passage.
Some holes needed to be filled with whatever was lying around.
pole walking/hiking rocks! :) making tracks on the awesome new trail!
Easy to get out of sight quickly.
Following the ribbons and clearings along the way
some of the huge pileups of downed trees that Clay and Orion cleaned up Sat.
Orion still kicking some of the many sticks that are on the trail. He and Clay rode the trail several times on mtn bikes to help establish the path a little better.
More fire souvenirs...
Lynn of USFS, second from left, was already out there with her GPS unit mapping out the trail, thanks, Lynn!!
Trail really starts climbing up through the darker, wetter zones heading to Point-O
One of the many mossy rocks typical of the trail not far below Point-R, or so...
Rock entirely covered in moss. Lots of it in this wet environment.
Nice forest glades abound...
Sun still shining brightly on the mountainside opposite the Canada Bonita, which is just below the trail in this picture.
Orion finding more pesky sticks that were no doubt flicked up into his spokes when he rode through here earlier.
Dave Wykoff and the gang cleared this section out nicely!
more saw dust from all the chainsawing on Sat to make the trail passable again
clearing off branches and other small stuff -- what a nest this section must have been before it was cleared
Fuzzy picture, but it's a good illustration of how nice the corridor is
Nice little section through deep, dark woods. This section took less clearing work and remains quite natural looking.
Mixed shag carpeting on the forest floor
Some big rocks just below the trail
yet more mossy rocks
another nice little clearing along the way
This little clearing took some work
OK, you get the picture...
The trail does have numerous little rocky passages that will be nicely covered in snow
Here's a little trail 'Y' junction. To the left, the trail exits out to a point near 'P', and to the right, the trail continues on to Point-O
The trail exiting out to Point-P makes a long sweeping curve.
The corridor toward Point-O is very evident.
another piece of trail that had to be chainsawed through. Not kidding, trees came down in clusters from that big wind last week!
End of trail at Point O. The snowshoe trail actually has 4 connections with the lower road including Paul's Portal as the first and point O as the last with two other 'connections' to/from the trail and lower road. There is a 5th on marked in the middle as well, but it has not been cleared.
rest stop at point O
