Decided to return to an old favorite that is conveniently nearby, about 30 minutes drive. It was forecasted to be a Bluebird day, and the weather did not disappoint. I was out the door a bit after 6 am, made a stop for gas, and was soon on my way. I had decided today that I would not take my pups as I had a feeling the trail was going to be crowded.
I eventually arrived at the parking area a little after 7 am. I rather quickly grabbed my pack and was soon signed in and headed up. The trail-up is pretty easy to follow, just need to pay attention to where you are going, as there are several switchbacks, and some of them you could walk straight off into the woods if you're not paying attention. One of the key things to hiking is carrying...
I decided to take an early morning hike up Poke-O-Moonshine mountain. I'm not one to typically hike in the summer as I generally spend my summer months camping, and going on shorter walkabouts. However, the mornings have been really unseasonably cooler these last few days so I opted to get a hike in. I hadn't hiked Poke-O in a while and wanted something nearby.
I was on the trail at 06:28 with a nice cool temperature of 58 degrees, zero bugs. Perfect hiking weather under a blue sky. The trip from the new trailhead is just over 4 miles round trip (4.1). We took our time and enjoyed the cool, shady, and quiet trail. My GPS logged 2275 max elevation. My total trip time which included my break on the summit and a few in between was 3:24...
I had first heard of this hike while looking through a friend's Facebook photos when I came across a post of this same hike (Surprise!). I did a little bit more digging and found another post on my favorite hiking forum, it's an older post but it had a bit more information. I was surprised at how long it has been available to the public.
I knew it was a short hike based on what I had read. The sign at the trailhead said it was 1.5 miles to Clements Pond, however, I assume that is to the edge of the pond. When you add in the distance beyond that, that goes out on what seems like a peninsula, it was more like 2 miles. Someone can correct me if I am wrong on the distance. In any event, it is a nice hike through mostly hardwoods on a...
I had started this hike a bit late about 10 AM. I initially was going to do an out and back from the parking lot area in St. Huberts. This would eventually change and I decided to hike it clockwise. Shortly after signing in, the trail immediately starts the climb up eventually easing to a gradual climb through a mix of hard and softwoods. I kept seeing fresh deer tracks along the way, obviously pushing the deer as I gradually made my way up to a point around 2600 feet where she finally revealed herself. She was about 30 yards away, and I tried to make a video of her, but it turned out very grainy.
The climbing gets steeper at this point and along the way you start to see nice views of Giant mountain becoming more and more prominent. At...
This is a nice little hike at .9 miles to the summit. Deciding later in the day to hike this turned out to be a good option. The trail surprisingly was well-drained and somewhat dry, given the recent rains we have had. It seems like there has been some trail work done, at least it seemed that way compared to my last visit several years ago to this mountain.
The trailhead is on the left about a half-mile south of the Douglas Campground on the Silver Lake road. It is a small trailhead and not much room for parking. I arrived around 230pm and there were 4 cars in the lot, room for one more (me), and that is about it. With the way, the shoulders are on the main road (Silver Lake Road), not very practical to park on the side of the road...