2012 1-21 Ballantine Trail

Length: 12.9 miles

Duration: 8 Hours 22 minutes

Vertical Up: 3786 feet
My track log at EveryTrail

Would you hike 13 miles to discover a Geocache?  This was the question that I was asking myself as I met up with a dedicated group of hikers along the Beeline Highway on a cold January morning.  Although the ultimate goal was not clear to me, I knew the hike was going to be long uphill and have some good views.  

The hike starts out easy enough with a modest 700 foot elevation gain over the first 2 miles.  The trail is very well established and a "easy" hike.  

Around the four mile mark we hit the first goal of the hike, Trojan Horse.  This is a rock formation that looks like a horse. Of course their is a Geocache there.  I was the only one in our group not to have found this cache, so I went to the rock and found it (after a bit of contortionist-like moves).  

From this point on the hike gets, well, interesting.  The climb starts to get serious here and the trail begins to become overgrown.  There are points in this portion where its easy to loose the trail if you are not paying attention.

A few more mile of hiking brought us to our second goal, a rock called "Evil Fish".  Since this was a new location for all of us, we did the cache that was located here.

Now it got fun.  From Evil Fish on, the trail is unbelievably steep and way overgrown.  Pants (not shorts) are a must on this trail and its not uncommon to draw blood on any exposed skin.  The last 1/2 mile of the hike seemed like it was straight up through a forest of bushes and plants that stabbed, poked and did everything it could to prevent us from reaching our goal.

I think it took 45 minutes to hike the last 1/2 mile, but the reward was worth it.  Our turn around poiint was a rock outcropping with a tremendous view of where we came from.  We paused here to eat lunch and began the long trek back.

The 7 mile hike back was more of the same brutality.  The only difference is the downhill slant of the trail reeked havoc on my knees.  Eventually we made it back to the trailhead.  this was a very cool hike, but, one I won't repeat anytime soon.  When I do, It think I'll bring a machete!