It didn't take long before I was back on the South Olallie Trail. Given I just hiked this trail a few weeks prior and had run into 3 trails that I never hiked before, I knew that this trail was going to become a new favorite. This time I wasn't looking to hike the South Olallie Trail, but was instead hoping to hike the other side of the Rebel Creek Trail. I knew that this was going to be a tough one because when I hiked the Rebel Creek Trail even before it was burned in a wildfire, I never saw this offshoot. This trail, I was expecting, would be long forgotten. I started early enough that I would not have to worry about the daylight that was becoming significantly less this time of year. It is still quite a haul to get up to this trail with significant vertical ascent over 4 miles. I would estimate about 2500 feet of elevation gain.
Where the trail began was essentially where the Olallie Trail stopped gaining vertically. Here there was a sign and the path looked relatively like a path. It didn't look like it had been used much in the past, oh let's say, 75 years, but it was a path. It was too bad that it wasn't used much because this actually turned out to be quite a nice trail. It was fairly level for most of the way and followed a path that seemed rather easy to follow. With GPS as good as it is, it was not hard for me to stay on the supposed "trail" even though in many places it was hard to find. There were times that I would lose it, but would eventually find my way back to it. There were lots of logs to cross over and debris to go around, but there was also the faint, discernible path that led through a comfortable forest. There weren't a lot of views in this forest, but at times it would peak out to the top of a ridge with a view down to the valley below. I loved this section of the forest because it was just so wild. There were huge expanses of untouched forest to enjoy. There was only one significant feature on the map on this entire section and that was Beeler Spring. When I got to where it should be on the map, I could not find any water. From this spot, the trail began to climb and I lost it for a good chunk of time. There would be giant logs down over the trail that I had to work my way around.
This slowed me down significantly and during this section I was only able to cover 1 mile in about an hour. Eventually, I would regain the path and it would take me to a promontory point where I would have to descend from this point on. It looked like at this point that I was only about a mile and a half from the main trail. The problem was that the trail continued to descend and to become more and more faint. Given the amount of daylight that I had this time of year, I was starting to question whether to turn back. When the trail completely disappeared, I decided that turning back was a good choice. I really wanted to connect it to the other side of the Rebel Creek Trail, but I would just have to come back another day to make this happen.
I could see Rebel Rock from where I turned around. It was the wise decision. As I was hiking back, I was thinking about why this trail had been abandoned. I thought about the old days when horse travel was a common thing to do to navigate in the wilderness. This would have been a thoroughfare used to get to other parts of the forest. When horses went out of style and the forest service started building roads, this became an unnecessary trail. Since it didn't go to a destination, what was the use of it. I thought that to be unfortunate. Sometimes it seems the forest service uses the designation of wilderness as a way to hide behind not having to maintain an area. This section of the forest was also used for grazing 100 years ago. At one point, there were probably sheep everywhere. I appreciated that they were gone, but the trails were probably in better shape at that point.
I decided to really look for Beeler Spring on the way back and eventually, I think I found it. It was a damp spot on the ground with a little bit of cut logs around it. At some point, this probably provided water for horses and sheep in this area. Now, it was abandon and had filled in with debris. I wondered what it would take to bring it back to its former glory days. For some reason, it was put on maps all the way back to the 1930s. This was important enough to be on a map, but not important enough to maintain. Kind of like the trail I was hiking today. I made it back to the Olallie Trail finding it a bit easier to hike back on a trail I had already hiked out on. From there I jogged all the way back to the car. It was almost 4 miles all downhill, but I was in good enough shape to make that happen. It turned out to be a great day and when I tried to research more about Beeler Spring, I was stumped by the internet. So, that is why I named my blog post Beeler Spring. I will probably be the only reliable information out there.
