A Hike on the Sam Merrill Trail

[headhunter]

Saturday, I decided to take a hike on the Sam Merrill Trail. It starts about 4 blocks from my house, so it's a convenient place to get away from it all.

It's just over 3 miles from my driveway to the ruins of "The White City" on Echo Mountain with an elevation gain of about 2,000 feet. I came back down the same route.

I took some pics on the hike and here is link to the slideshow:

http://s916.photobucket.com/albums/a...view=slideshow

Some of them look like duplicates, because I was slightly changing settings to see how they would turn out.

Here are some of the shots:





























































It was a great day out in the forest!

Christian

[OU812]

Nice hike. Did you test out the "Echo Phone"?

[headhunter]

Nice hike. Did you test out the "Echo Phone"?

Of course! I was promptly connected to myself...repeatedly. :wink:

A cool thing about hiking along along the Mount Lowe Railway from Echo Mountain to Alpine Tavern is that they have lots of signs with info and pictures on them to let you know and see what it was like.

I only went to the Echo Mountain area this time and did not hike over to the Alpine Tavern site. I think that all of the trees in that area burned. There were some big oaks over there and hopefully they survived the fire.

Christian

[Kodiak Spirit]

Thanks for the nice write up, sounds like a nice day.

[Roger]

is it an easy walk? or a strenous hike. It looks interesting but I'm not much for a streous hike.....

[headhunter]

is it an easy walk? or a strenous hike. It looks interesting but I'm not much for a streous hike.....

Hey Roger,

I'd call it a moderate hike, but I'd better qualify that.

It's easier than hiking the Grand Canyon or Mount Whitney, but harder than walking around Cakewalk or Bullfrog.

That said, I'd say it's strenuous. You'd most likely feel it the next day if you were not used to doing any hiking. The trail it pretty well cut, so it's not a "technical" hike.

Christian

[XJJK]

Agreed. It's about 35-45 degree angle for a lot of the way up and it is open overhead, so on hot days beware and bring lots of water. Definitely a good workout and history lesson. Thanks for sharing, Christian.

[RAT]

Thanks Christian, that is way cool. I love the history of this area. I will definitely go hit that trail soon.

[SAR Jeeper]

I've done this hike about half a dozen times. It is very nice. I'm amazed at the eye candy that hikes this trail too!

[Geebo]

I look at the beauty and history and it,s awesome..but always there are some jack asses that gotta get some crayons out and try and spell/write on walls...