West Tiger 2, West Tiger 3, K-3 Trail, Section Line Trail, West Tiger Railroad Grade & Swamp Trail — Sunday, Mar. 16, 2025

Wanted to get outside and get some miles in for training on a pretty bad weather weekend. It was too windy to go out on Saturday, so Sunday it was. Decided to do a loop around West Tiger.

Trailhead: Got there about 10:30 am on a Sunday and the parking lot was full, but lots of turnover. A car pulled out to leave and I got a spot, but there was a lot of activity. Bathrooms didn't smell the best but were fully stocked. Parking lot was probably 2/3 full at 4:30 pm when I finished. 

The Trail: Started at the West Tiger 3 trailhead and went up the West Tiger 3 trail until I got to the West Tiger Railroad Grade. I took this off shoot. The snow started to cover the trail around here. This is a less traveled trail, so there were some downed trees and a tricky stream crossing with the snow, but nothing too bad. I connected to the K-3 trail and made my way straight up to West Tiger 2. It was not raining, but the snow was heavy enough in the trees and it was hot enough that it was very wet with lots of slushy snow and water falling overhead. Once I got out of the trees it was back to being dry, but traded that out for the wind. After getting up to West Tiger 2 I went down the backside to check out the Dramatic Erratic, I giant glacial boulder that had a label on the map, back through the trees between 2 and 3 where again snow and water were falling steadily from the trees, and then back up to West Tiger 3 where it was again very windy for lunch. Went down the Section Line trail all the way to its intersection with the high school trail and headed up to the swamp trail. This section was very wet with lots of running and standing water on trail. I clocked 8.5 miles and 2500 ft elevation gain.