Heybrook Ridge — Tuesday, Jul. 30, 2019

Wonderful hike! It was easy, but not too easy. The ascent makes for a bit of a challenge, especially with a 4-year old and 2-and-a-half-er. They had a blast scrambling up some of the steeper parts. The different environments of the trail were a treat: most in a semi-dense forest, pretty much upwards via switchbacks till you reach the inner part of the ridge, where there's a short bit of thicker fern area, opening up into a beautiful birch grove, which itself opens up eventually into the sparser ridge area, which today was quite lovely with wildflowers and delightful with 4-5 different types of edible wild berries, all quite delicious. The open valley and look out come at a wonderful interval after 1.7 miles up. A great place to sit a while and admire the view while re-hydrating and munching on some trail mix. The power lines don't even really spoil it at all either. Really great payoff for fairly minimal effort. We saw some (presumably) coyote poop (lotsa hair in it), and almost got crashed into by a galloping fawn (dunno what was happening there). A nice day for sure. We also found a snake skin and many different mushrooms. Good times.