You Are Here: Fox State Forest West Side Trails

Today was almost the complete opposite to yesterday. I revisited Fox State Forest in Hillsborough to start working on the West Side trails. I parked at the HQ parking and crossed Center St to access the trails. I started on Ridge Trail, which right away was in a logged area and was rather messy. Thankfully unlike yesterday, very well blazed and I had solid snow cover so much of the debris was covered and smoothed over, making easy going. Once on Hurricane Road, I followed to the end and back to Ridge Trail to cover that section. I had planned an out and back on Fisher Cat Trail, thinking it looked like an easy short 05. mile trail connecting Ridge Trail to Bible Hill Road. This section of trail was less traveled, though I did see footprints from time to time. It was much softer than Ridge Trail, which slowed me down. I also reached an area that I'm calling a boulder field, because looking around all I could see where boulders and trees traversing the side of Peak Hill. There was a lot of debris and blowdowns and I lost the blazes several times, relying on my pre-downloaded tracks to make sure I was headed in the right direction. Every now and then I'd see a blaze, it was marked with both white and yellow blazes, and I kept thinking I'd see a blaze, and it turned out to just be a tree marking. I finally reached the end and was met with a huge blowdown that I could not get over or under, so had to navigate around. It was near a brook, so I was also concerned with soft snow breaking through to have water underneath. Thankfully I made it through OK and got to the end at Bible Hill Road. Backtracking this trail amazingly I could see blazes almost the entire way. So I just must have been off enough to have lost the blazes on the way out (in looking at my uploaded Suunto tracks, I actually wasn't far off just enough to not see the blazes). Back at the intersection of Fisher Cat Trail and Ridge Trail there was another short out and back called Rabbit Trail that went a few tenths down to a marsh. This one was much better going, still soft snow, but easy to follow blazes. Once I reached the marsh, I could see yellow blazes on the other side, but had no way of getting over to that side as the ice wasn't frozen enough. My map also showed the marsh was the end of the trail, so I'm not actually sure what that was on the other side. I didn't go investigating. Back on Ridge Trail again, I followed around through some very pretty forest and took the Molly Jackson Swamp Trail, another out and back to Bible Hill Road. This was super well packed out by a prior snowshoer and very easy going. I encountered the only person I saw the entire day on my way back, a man with his 2 very excitable dogs! I left the Ridge Trail here and took Barred Owl Trail which gently ascended up to an intersection with Harvey Road, where I found an even bigger blowdown. This one through me a bit and I started to head down a trail I hadn't planned for that day, but quickly realized my mistake and corrected myself. I did a quick out and back on White Cross Trail between Harvey Road and Ridge Trail, which started out with flags and blazing on every single tree, and then all of a sudden it all stopped, but thankfully was easy to follow. The snowpack here was deep as evidenced by post holes from a previous hiker, but was thankfully frozen solid and I had no issues with sinking. White Cross Trail as it headed up and back towards my starting point became a bit messier with slushy snow and water. I joined Swamp Trail which continued up and became even messier with logging debris. This passed through the logging area and was the messiest part of the day, snow covered most of it, but there was definitely a lot of stick and branch debris you had to watch out for. Back on Ridge Trail and I doubled back the way I started and arrived back at my car.

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