Cable Line Trail, West Tiger 3 — Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021

We arrived at the Cable Line TH close to 0730 with no cars around. There is only 1 tree down over the Cable line route and it’s easy to walk over.  There’s a thick layer of downed yellow big leaf maple leaves on much of the trail in the first mile or so.  Removed a few fallen branches.  No running water on the trail this am.  The cable route trail leading to the summit area has an orange barricade and a large tree down to keep people off the summit.  The regular trail still has an orange barricade close to the summit.   From a little distance, the summit itself looks like tree debris was cleared and there are no trees standing.  One of the large sitting rocks remains. The wind seemed to be howling at 30 mph since there is less protection (and it’s a stormy day).  Glad to have shells and layers even though we had no rain. The most impressive tree clearing is off to the right, or west of the summit.  There is a large swath of trees removed which reveals all the valleys below which were never visible in the past.  Heading down the regular (WT3) trail we encountered a few more people and 4 or 5 downed trees across the trail which are easy to get over.  Most of these trees are in the lower half of the hike down.  Trail otherwise in great shape with no running water.