Storm Drain
This trail is a very long, numbered spur road off of Storm Mountain. We figured we'd do some exploring and that's exactly what we did. It looked like there hadn't been a vehicle on the trail in a couple of years, at least, and it was definitely an adventure.
It started off as a regular forest service road, nice and wide and maintained. We took it to the intersection and headed up, but found that the trail soon ended at a gate. We turned around there.
We headed down to the meadow, and that's where the trail first started looking like not many people were ever on it. It was two vehicle tracks that went through green grass, and there were no marks that people had strayed from the trail anywhere. We decided to keep going.
It wasn't long before we were driving through trees, with branches and bugs coming into our vehicles. We each found a spider or two, and it was a little annoying. But still, it was an adventure and an obvious trail, so we kept going.
Sometimes the trail would get pretty tippy, especially if there was a rock in the trail. It was pretty narrow in spots, and often very close to the edge. It was switchback after switchback, and we often wondered if it would just quit on us.
When we got to the ugly switchback, we wondered if it was too narrow. Don went through it first, and it was narrow but not too narrow. Turning through the switchback itself was a challenge, though, and took multiple-point turns. There was even a rock right after it that got us all tippy.
Just after that was the obstacle before the creek crossing, and that was challenging. You had to turn at the bottom, and it made things interesting to say the least!
Just after the creek, there were no more trees in the trail. It was wide and nice as we crossed over to another mountain. Soon, we came out on the other side and we could see houses below us. On our GPS units, we could see that the trail went through.
Monica had run ahead to make sure we still had trail, and soon she ran up to say that it dead-ended. Everyone parked and we walked down. It was a good thing, because there was a tippy and narrow obstacle in a switchback between where the group was and where Monica was.
Once we got down to the dead end, it was obvious that people hadn't been on the other side in many, many years. The condition of the trail on the other side was much different. It was very overgrown.
We turned around and headed back up. Now that we knew we could do it and what to expect, the trip up was much faster than the trip down. We were up and out in no time, and we headed back down Storm Mountain. We weren't sure we'd do Storm Drain ever again, but we were all glad we were there for this adventure.
