Little Muddy Creek
We were a little more than halfway done with the Keyser Creek trail when we started the big loop we had planned. The loop has a bit of Keyser Creek on the south end and a bit of highway 40 on the north end. We had no idea what we'd find on the trails between them. We decided to start with Little Muddy Creek and finish with Blue Ridge.
Little Muddy Creek ended up being a big, muddy mess of a good time. It started off mellow enough, winding its way through the pine trees like Keyser Creek had been doing. Then we went down in the valley to follow the creek and the trail totally changed.
You could see where the trail had been muddy recently and in years past. There were huge ruts everywhere, and you could still see the tread marks of the tires that struggled there. We were thrown back and forth as we worked our way through the ruts, and the going was slow.
We got even closer to the creek and the trail's ruts became filled with muddy water and sticky mud. We crossed a nice, one-lane bridge, and the mud got even crazier. We needed four-wheel drive in spots, and momentum was key in other spots. No one needed lockers, but we could see where they would be necessary at times.
We came up on some ATVs going in the other direction right when we were at a wide spot, so they got by us without issues. It would be a fun and muddy mess for them, but we were almost out of it. The mud changed to dried ruts before the trail mellowed out.
The views on the north end were pretty awesome. We talked about taking the side trip to Williams Fork Reservoir, but in the end we skipped it. We had a lot of trails yet to explore and we didn't know what to expect. We'd have to save it for next time.
We weaved our way through Parshall and popped out onto the highway. We turned east for a brief stay on the pavement before the next trail. We definitely have our mud fix for the weekend.
