Guinness
Active member
TMax and I choose to do Cliff and Redfield on Saturday May 14th. We left the Loj and followed the trails past Lake Arnold down to Feldspar where we stopped for a brief lunch. We turned too soon off the main trail near Uphill on the herd path toward Redfield. The plan was to do Cliff first and after a minute we turned off the herd path directly toward Cliff to pick up the correct hard path.
The herd path follows an old corduroy road that is mostly a stream now. Most crosswise logs were submerged and are rotting. I assume this is from an old logging operation long abandoned? The herd path turns right from this old road and is marked with a large cairn. The path to the first cliffs was relatively easy to follow with only a few turns that required some retracing. Mostly these were other herd paths that led to a dead end. At the first cliffs the herd path turned left and up. With the rain falling most of the days, the cliffs were slippery. The blow down increased and you will see there has been trail maintenance to help keep us on some resemblance of a herd path.
Upon reaching the false summit, continue on the trail about 0.2 miles. There you will find recent trail maintenance. The path appears to make a sharp right turn toward an open area and you will see red and orange flags there. When we followed this path, it dead-ended near the flags. We returned to the spot of the turn and continued straight through the blow down on a direct line toward the true summit. The path was picked up after about one hundred feet and continued toward the cliffs on the actual summit.
On our return and descending from the cliffs off the false summit, we picked up more flags that we did not see on the way up. These flags turned right off the main herd path taking you down a route less traveled and parallel to the main herd path we used going up. This path concluded at the old corduroy road about 100 yard further up. It is also marked with a cairn where it joined the old road that is more a narrow path by then.
Due to the time, we decided not to head over to Redfield, but hiked back to the Loj campground where a campfire and shower was waiting.
The herd path follows an old corduroy road that is mostly a stream now. Most crosswise logs were submerged and are rotting. I assume this is from an old logging operation long abandoned? The herd path turns right from this old road and is marked with a large cairn. The path to the first cliffs was relatively easy to follow with only a few turns that required some retracing. Mostly these were other herd paths that led to a dead end. At the first cliffs the herd path turned left and up. With the rain falling most of the days, the cliffs were slippery. The blow down increased and you will see there has been trail maintenance to help keep us on some resemblance of a herd path.
Upon reaching the false summit, continue on the trail about 0.2 miles. There you will find recent trail maintenance. The path appears to make a sharp right turn toward an open area and you will see red and orange flags there. When we followed this path, it dead-ended near the flags. We returned to the spot of the turn and continued straight through the blow down on a direct line toward the true summit. The path was picked up after about one hundred feet and continued toward the cliffs on the actual summit.
On our return and descending from the cliffs off the false summit, we picked up more flags that we did not see on the way up. These flags turned right off the main herd path taking you down a route less traveled and parallel to the main herd path we used going up. This path concluded at the old corduroy road about 100 yard further up. It is also marked with a cairn where it joined the old road that is more a narrow path by then.
Due to the time, we decided not to head over to Redfield, but hiked back to the Loj campground where a campfire and shower was waiting.
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