Mount Higgins

Beano, B., and Irishman Sean accompanied me today. Beano, B. and I had attempted this trip in November of last year, but were thwarted by short days and a too late start. This is getting to be a habit as this year we had other problems that cut our trip short as well. Equipment was forgotten, some were broken during the trip up, and someone just wasn't into it. So, once again we only made it to the meadows before turning back for beer and dinner at the Mirkwood. Conditions were fairly good on the trail, but the road became very rutted about 1/2 mile before the trailhead. Many passenger cars would have made it, but I wasn't willing to put my faithful Toyota through that punishment so we parked and walked the remaining 1/2 mile or so of very steep road to the trailhead. From there it was fine going until the crossing of Dick's Creek. After poking around a bit and with Beano's carpentering abilities we found a suitable crossing and Beano built a bridge. Otherwise, it would have been pretty dicey getting across. Snow began immediately after the crossing. We headed up before cutting to the right just a bit too early coming out on the wrong side of a low ridge that came between us and the proper route. No problem, we backtracked a bit and found the correct route that brought us to the meadow at about 4000'. This was as far as some were prepared to go. The snow is becoming quite consolidated and snowshoes weren't necessary. It was fairly warm with only a couple minutes of drizzle, although it was cloudy most of the day. A fine time was had by all. However, I would like to add my comments to others that have been made on this site recently regarding the amount of target practicing that's happening on the access road. I've never seen so many people shooting every manner of rifle, gun, semi automatic whatever, and drinking beer with rotweillers and God knows what else going on. There were families with toddlers, teenagers, and even a guy in a confederate army outfit shooting like crazy. It was very unnerving to us since we heard shots continuously during the first mile or so coming and going on the trail and some of the shots were very close. What is DNR thinking to allow this to go on? And the trash! Buckets of spent rounds and beer cans covered every turnout and we even saw quite a bit on the trail. I've never seen the like. I can't imagine that many people are going to come up to hike this trail and leave their cars at the mercy of these nutcases. Maybe that's the plan with DNR, but I would hope that they would be doing some policing in the area. Aren't there logging roads out there that don't access trails for these folks to do their shooting?