Hall Point, Change Creek, Great Wall Trail, Mt Washington
(Another trail closed! See below.)
First true sun hike for the year, but fortunately most of the morning hike was in the shade of the forest as is much of the descent on the new trail. The Great Wall Trail is, of course, the most exposed.
Fallen trees grace the ascent above the John Wayne Trail, but the trail from the first overlook to Ravens Roost is in relatively good shape despite increased traffic in recent years. A small downed tree on the rise to Hall Point makes one area of the descent difficult. The section south of Hall Point felt different, less-well-trodden, with more trail detris though not yet fully encroached. The FS road approaching Change Lake may become entirely overgrown in the next 3--5 years, but the west section to the Great Wall trail is much safer since regrading. Zero visitors on these trails today except me; all crowds were on the Mt Washington side.
Very offended with the closure. After several years constructing the new bike trails on top of the hiking trails, it seems there were enough bikes encroaching on the southern roads that they opted to close it off entirely. The south junction of the Great Wall Trail now has very large concrete blocks designating the southern ridge road as (newly) off limits. While the watershed is on the south, downhill side of that road, it has always been accessible and is the only route for a loop hike from Hall Point to Hall Peak to the Great Wall trail. This effectively means that Hall Peak will never get visitors, because going one way up the goat path is enough for any day, and the lower roads back to Hall Creek require machetes. This also restricts the available "emergency exits" (ie safe options when hiking), because one might reach an area and find that a connecting road is offlimits. This was never an issue with hikers since we leave very little impact; it seems moutain bikers were enough to impact the area or lead to overnights/fire-pits/etc. :[
11.7mi 1190m ascent
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