Rainy Lake to Greenpoint Trail 9-16-14

[Limey]

Yesterday we went to hike an unsigned trail which EP kindly found on a map labeled as trail 610. It runs from Rainy Lake campground to Greenpoint reservoir. On the way up 2820, a bear popped up over the edge into the road about 75 feet in front of us. I yelled, stop, bear, and scrambled for the camera. He stood in the road and turned his head staring right at us. Of course, just as I had the camera ready he decided that the noisy white thing in the road was too scary and blasted up the hill, never to be seen again. He was gorgeous, very shiny and healthy looking. We decided to start hiking at the lower end where the trail crosses 2820. We did not get all the way to Rainy because I was hiking with a messed up knee and Daves hip was out of place, so we had to turn back when he just couldn't go anymore. This is a great trail for we old people who have an aversion to EG. I hate uphill. I believe it might be the route that the lumber flume traveled. It was reported to be "the worlds only level log flume. A humongous network of trip gates, holding ponds and sluice flumes that stretched for 6 miles". The fall colors were fantastic, I couldn't stop taking pictures which because of all the smoke in the air didn't come out as good as seeing with the naked eye. On to the pics.

The trail runs along an aqueduct.

The white strip in the above photo is smoke. It filled the whole canyon. With the naked eye you could just see the trees on the far side of the canyon.

And a final pic. A pretty purple flower.

We will do this trail again in a few days, going from the top down. I think we only got about halfway yesterday.

[bobcat]

It's basically a mountain biker's trail, but looks like late summer/early fall is a nice time to be on it!

[greenjello85]

Those fall color pictures are really cool. Nice job

[Limey]

Bobcat, yes the trail says open to hikers and bikers. We only saw one very faint bike track and the vegetation was hanging over the trail in a lot of places. So, it looks like it didn't get much use this summer.


Greenjello, thank you. The colors were really amazing, I couldn't stop saying WOW.

Just did the trail from the upper end. Might do a tr if I got any decent pics.