Parked in the cul-de-sac down the road and walked up the narrow shoulder of Tiger Mt Rd SE, but never felt unsafe. Headed up the Fifteenmile Creek Trail for a short bit then took the unsigned downhill MTB trail 0.6 miles up to Hobart-Middle Tiger RR. Looks like it would be a fun gravity ride. Luckily we didn't encounter anyone barreling down, as the thick layers of leaves would've made quick braking an uncontrolled slide into us.
We were up here last in June and the trail was much more obscured. Today was characterized by a soft cushion of leaves and several easy creek crossings. When it rains heavily, the leaves hold a lot of water and can soak the feet, but fortunately today, the ground was just damp. There were a few muddy spots, but nothing too bad. I moved a couple whole trees off the trail and a few pieces of trees and cleared narrow spots. I thought ahead today and wore pants, so I didn't feel most of the branches and thorns. I did warn my partner to stay back a bit further as there were a lot of whipping branches in play as I passed. There was a jumbled mess just before the connector to TMT, but we went slowly over and through.
We checked out the creek crossing to get to Fifteenmile Creek RR, but the downed trees crossing it looked slick as it was lightly raining. The creek path has widened out too, so we decided to just head up to TMT and around. Passed over Custer's Bridge and then crossed Fifteenmile RR and up to the big boulder right alongside TMT. Decided to turn around instead of continue on to Hidden Forest and back on Fifteenmile RR. Headed back the same way we came and ran into a guy with two dogs - the only one we saw on trails today.
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