Bridle Trails State Park is a true gem. It's simply astounding to have such a fantastic forest embedded right in the midst of suburbia. There hardly is any better place to immerse yourself and your young ones with forests, the sound of birds, the smell of trees and a good long walk.

As a bonus, your kids get a chance to see horses - on top of woodpeckers, squirrels, juncos, maybe even an owl and other critters. We saw a tiny mouse today.

All the main trails have been cleaned up and bomb cyclone debris from November has been moved out of the way. Some of the small side trails still are obstructed by fallen trees. If you don't want to risk turning around or having to climb over large trees, better stay on the main trails.

The weather today was brilliant for a forest walk with the kiddo. We had a great time in the park.

I joined a large NSSC group for a walk / hike through Bridle Trails State Park today.  We meet at the main entrance at 10:00AM and we were the only cars in the lot.  It was 48 degrees with clearing skies.  The park bathrooms were open and sparkling clean. A SP ranger noticed our group queueing up and he mentioned they were still doing work to clear downed trees in the park after the bomb cyclone. Also, signs were clearly posted with hazard conditions on some trails. Our 5.6 mile loop route followed the Raven and Coyote Perimeter Loop with a pop out loop in Bridlewood Circle homes.  The entire trail was saturated wet soil, with many super muddy areas.  I was glad to have worn my knee high gaiters. They have done a terrific job of clearing 95% of all the downed trees in the park, on our route it was entirely clear.  There were still some smaller evergreen fronds and branches all throughout the trail.  We did our job, tossing branch debris off the trail along the way.  Trail traffic was fairly light; two people on horses (one scared of people) so we yielded by stepping off the trail as space was available.  The few other folks were neighborhood locals out for run or dog walk.  We stopped at the horse barn and petted a few horses.  Another fantastic day out in nature with friends.

This was a great beginner hike. My parents and I took the Coyote Loop, and it was very peaceful. Pretty low foot traffic for a weekend, and it was nice. The trail had lots of muddy and wet spots to watch out for but nothing you couldn't step around. The trees that had fallen over from the storm in late November were cleared out from the trail, with fallen trees on remaining on the sides. Watch out for horse poop! There was quite a bit of it, luckily we were able to catch it. Speaking of horses, a lady named Linda and her horse Libby saved us. My dad had dropped his wallet, and Linda found it. She was able to find us with her horse, just as we were exiting the trail. Very kind hikers like her passed by. Overall, the Coyote Loop was easily navigable and a great time.  

Forgot to take photos but the park is much better!

I went the day after the storm and saw the damage that occured on Trillium, there were probably 15+ large trees, most with rootballs and quite a few falling in groups that were over the trail.

When I went today I ran the Coyote Loop and the Trillium and both were completely clear of all fallen trees. Even passed a few horses who were able to easily get through the trails. There's still a lot of the general tiny pine needle clump branches and a few slightly bigger branches but nothing that can't be navigated though very easily.

Big props to the Bridle Trails crew for getting through all those trees so fast!

I tried several trails today, normally interlinked, but most were dead ends (at least for me), with multiple large trees down and few good crossing options. I did have a good hike back and forth, but it was frustrating. The main trails are in somewhat better condition, but it will likely be several days before things are cleared by State Parks. I appreciated a few folks doing light trail maintenance on the multiple small branches, but chainsaws will be necessary for the big stuff.