Old Robe Canyon

The brick sign was hidden by cars parked on the roadside, but the fact that they were parked there indicated that that was the trail head (no permit required). If you don't want to leave your car on the roadside, there is secured paid parking on the Paca Pride Guest Ranch a little further East.

The first section of the trail was in great conditions down through the quiet forest. Being an inexperienced hiker, I thought the trail ended at the river, where we stopped for a picnic.

The second section was along the river, starting on flat sand ground. I thought the mud would be dry after a sunny week, but there are marshes and streams around, so it was hard but not impossible to cross the puddles balancing on logs and rocks without sticking the shoes in the mud. The very orange algae puddle observed by Nocturnal on March 27 (trip report below) was still there. I saw some small yellow and purple wildflowers but not as many as I expected.

After scrambling up and down through a couple of streams with small waterfalls to the right, the third section starts where the river goes through the actual canyon. Unfortunately, when the scenery starts to get exciting, there is a big sign saying that that the trail is closed to all users beyond that point.

We saw everybody continuing anyway, which is relatively dangerous because there is no path anymore, you have to climb on rocks and loose gravel on an inclined surface. There are large boulders full of cracks that I'm sure will continue sliding down to the river one day. After the slide area the path becomes easy again.

Only around that spot we started to recognize the remains of the railroad, which was build in a very interesting way. People coming back said it was possible to go through the first tunnel, but recommended not to go any further after the second tunnel.

And I didn't even know there were tunnels! I just wonder how many more exciting surprises the rest of the trail has to offer!

Altogether the round trip took us approximately 2.5 hours.