Saturday morning, my teen and I hiked both the ADA loop and river trail of the Old Sauk, as described in the trail description. We parked at the middle trailhead, hiked the ADA loop south to the path to Murphy Creek, then back to the north trailhead along the river, and finally completed the ADA loop.
The picnic tables and vault toilet are in great shape, and looked like a lot of the trail had been recently mowed. I think we picked up a couple of tiny pieces of trash we saw, but there really wasn't any to speak of. We did find probably 20 large crab shells in Murphy Creek, which (if I had to guess), someone had probably thrown or dumped from the bridge over Highway 530. We just kind of scratched our heads and left those where they were...
We saw very few people - we had the trail to ourselves and saw no one else at all until after noon. I suspect this might be a more popular trail for the "off-season"...which might also explain why there were still tons and tons of very ripe huckleberries. There were a few ripe blackberries and thimbleberries along they way, as well. We skipped the granola bars we brought for lunch, but most definitely didn't go hungry. It was also a warm day, so folks might have opted for higher elevation trails, but with the shade from the forest and a cool breeze off the river, it was pleasant. We had two liters of water each, and finished pretty much all of it.
We saw four very shy garter snakes and a few birds, but otherwise not a lot of wildlife. Down by the river itself, we saw recent dog or possibly coyote tracks, and some older raccoon tracks. Given the mud and sand where we made our way down, I was a little surprised not to find any other tracks. Toward the south end of the trail, where the river is no longer visible, we did see one spot where something (I'm guessing a bear) probably came up through the brush from the river area for some huckleberries, and left a signature dropping pile right in the trail itself.
Great outing, even for a warm day, and we were pleasantly surprised at the unexpected solitude. That solitude, the easy drive, some good weather, ripe huckleberries, and -- last but not least -- some quality time with my teenager, made this a huge win. The trail description says six miles round trip, but we wandered around quite a bit, and my fitness tracker and GPS showed closer to eight. Good times.
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