Notes
Decided to head out and explore the Historic Hiking Loop (so named by ODF) Which consists of three trails: Gravelle Brothers Trail + Wilson River Wagon Trail + Nels Rogers Trail. Weather was cloudy with a light rain through the middle miles of the run. Started on the Gravelle Brothers trail and followed it for about .4 miles where it intersects with Storey Burn Trail. Took a short detour and followed storey burn just past the spot where it passes under Hwy. 6. Most of this section of the trail was very muddy and a little chewed up from weekend cyclists. Turned around past the bridge and went back onto Gravelle Bros trail. Most of this trail was muddy and torn up from cyclists forcing me to slow down and watch my steps which was annoying. I also noticed a lot of rocks and tree roots on the trail. At the end of this trail, you can take another short detour and see University Falls which I did. That was a magnificent sight to see as the waterfall was large and no doubt at near full capacity from all of the spring rains. I stopped at took a few minutes to take it all in and then I returned to the trail loop. Shortly after the falls, I exited Gravelle Brothers and entered the Wilson River Wagon Road Trail. This trail was not as rocky and tree rooty as Gravelle Brothers and it had a very beautiful flat stretch of trail running through beautiful forest scenery.
A couple of miles later this trail turns into Nels Rogers trail and continues on back to Rogers Camp. Nels Rogers takes you through a much younger forest and a nice brief clear cut area with a good view of some mountains. However a lot of it is steep up and down hill on a narrow trail which made it a little difficult. I stopped at a nice spot along a river with a small waterfall coming into it which was really pretty. Soon after this, I made another detour on a short trail called the "High Water Trail" which just runs along the other side of the river and connects to a gravel rd. (and eventually pops you out on the other side of the river. Short detour but nice scenery. The last .9 miles back to Rogers Camp felt like a struggle with a lot of twisty and uphill slippery trail. Was glad to finally finish the loop and ended up running a short segment on a newly constructed part of the trail through to the parking lot.
I guess since this trail is so close to the heavily used Roger's camp it gets a lot of traffic. It also intersects ALOT with Off Road Vehicle trails and roads which means lots of people and noisy vehicles (which I thankfully didn't see today)...rrgh! Although there were definately some bright spots to the loop, a lot of the trail was slow moving due to rocks, roots, bike tire ruts, muddy inclines, etc. which is just not conducive to trail running...maybe a good trail to hike on occasion..maybe. Overall it was a good adventure and I'm glad I was able to chart that loop and see some nice waterfalls. However, I think I will stick to running the Gales Creek/Storey Burn Loop and the WRT.