Lookout Tree, Beaver Lake — Friday, Feb. 28, 2020

The past two days I spent about 10 hours fixing up the Lookout Tree trail.

Yesterday I parked at the Lookout Tree trailhead (signed), about 3 miles up the Mountain Loop from the Beaver Lake T.H..  Trail down to the Tree is pretty good already, most of the few visitors here stop there.  Almost immediately beyond, the brush closed in, and I got to work.

Tons of branches down, trail would have been hard to make out in places without the flags.  I tackled most of it, came back today to finish.

This morning they were grading the Mountain Loop at the end of the pavement (hooray!) so I parked at the Beaver Lake trailhead.  No other hikers. 

I had to slosh across the river channel between the trails, didn't take off my shoes, so had wet feet all day.  Less than knee deep, not too cold.  You could (and should) go barefoot comfortably across the channel, up the beach, and back across before putting your shoes back on - bring a towel.

There was a little left to do, about 3 hours.  Nice to be able to finish the work from the opposite end rather than having to pick up where I left off.  

The Lookout Tree trail is now the good way to access the Beaver Lake trail beyond the broken bridge.  These are both part of the same old logging railroad.  The 5 government trucks I saw here 3 days ago tells me there's a $100,000 fix in the works someday, but for a few hours of my time, now we have this again.