North Henson Road
We saw a big, looping spur off of Engineer Pass that we were hoping to explore, but when we got to the west end of it it no longer existed. It seemed to be a hiking trail now, and definitely not available to vehicles. But when we got to the other end at Capitol City we found it marked as North Henson Road and very accessible to us. We said goodbye to Bob and headed up the trail.
It was a pretty easy trail through the trees, and it wasn't long before we came to an intersection. One fork said that it required 4x4 vehicles, so naturally we took that one first.
It was rough as it climbed, but not too bad. We saw a Honda SUV on the way down, so it wasn't anything extreme. Unfortunately, it ended too soon at the trailhead for the Montezuma hiking trail. We turned around at the parking area there after checking out the maps provided at the trailhead. It looked like our other spur off of North Herman Road would be about the same length as the one we were on.
We headed back down and then headed up along the other spur. This one was much more mellow as it went through the trees with nothing much else to see. It started raining, but it was relaxing as we bumped our way along.
The spur was already much longer than the one up to the hiking trail, but we had to see how far it went. We came around a switchback to see a sign telling us to turn around. The trail seemed to continue on with no signs barring 4x4 vehicles, but it didn't seem worth the risk so we turned around.
It wasn't long before we were back at the trailhead. Was the trail worth it? Maybe we'd do it again if we were in the area and we had extra time. We'd definitely do it again to check out the Montezuma hiking trail. But it wasn't one we'd change our plans to do again.
