May Valley Loop, Bullitt Fireplace Trail & Squak Mountain Access Trail — Tuesday, May. 13, 2025

We parked at the state park lot and hiked up the May Valley trail, it is in good condition and very lush. Once past the Bullitt fireplace approaching Central peak there is a mess of blow downs. Some blue flagging but we lost the trail and bushwhacked and scrambled until we found it again just shy of the peak. Seems odd it’s not been cleared since the access road is right there to drive saws up there for trail work … but nonetheless it wasn’t too bad. Took the access road down, trail running until 1.5 miles from the bottom we ran into a small bear, it was in the middle of the road and started lumbering towards us. thankfully we could just detour onto the May Valley trail. We made a lot of noise and hustled down once we were convinced it did not follow us and had an uneventful finish with headlamps on. We were done 30 minutes prior to sunset but it gets dark quickly so be sure to pack a headlamp for evening hikes! No bear photo since once it was walking towards us we got moving 🐻