First I wanted to see the condition of Red's Shortcut. This is a connector I've been to several times, none recently. It was also described in one of the editions of John Robinson's book:
You start here:
First you walk along the ridge to the powerlines:
This isn't super steep, and mostly clear. You can clearly see the Ken Burton trail switch-backing across the Arroyo:
Right past the last tower, the trail jumps off the ridge to the left. This is steep, but again, mostly clear. The route is flagged. Representative section:
Near the bottom the route drops down a steep gully, and some fixed ropes are available to help:
You don't strictly need them, but it's nice they're there. They also look fairly new. Here I found a genuine "TrailBuddy" trekking pole.
This trail works. I wouldn't dream of bringing a bike here. And you can't even really run this: too narrow and steep.
Red's shortcut dumps you at the mouth of Dark Canyon, near Oakwilde. I climbed the Ken Burton trail to see how quickly I could do this, and to try to gauge how it would feel riding it. This trail is well-maintained, but unless you have a bicycle there's zero reason to come here. At the top is a plaque
and decent views down canyon
Going down was much faster than going up. With a mountain bike this trail would be no problem. But with anything lesser, I think there would be a lot of walking. Maybe. Back at Oakwilde I wanted to see what I would do if I did end up here with a bike. Ascending Dark Canyon would be ideal.
Since the last time I was here the trail has been improved by a LOT. Thanks, trailbuilders! I'm still skeptical you can ride a lot of this (narrow, rough), but you can easily hike-a-bike it if needed. Representative section near the bottom:
Lots of cabin ruins here still:
The big cabin that somebody was trying to squat in a few years ago has collapsed: the walls aren't up anymore, and all the extra materials that were there are gone.
At the top the trail meets a road that climbs out to the right to CCC ridge. This is probably passable, but I wanted to check out the rest of the Lower Dark Canyon trail, that climbs directly up from the canyon to the highway. I found the junction: it's at a major switchback in the main trail: switchback goes right, direct trail goes left. The worst part of this trail is right at the bottom end: there was a small slide, and a tree has fallen, blocking the bottom end of the trail. Past that it's clear and good:
Still steep, and I wouldn't ride it, but there maybe is benefit to hike-bike-ing out this way.
Here's what the upper end of the trail looks like:
Here's my gps track, which I'm about to study closely:
and waterfalls.