More Hike From the Sarasota Trailhead

Sunday we hiked a loop counter clock-wise that we had done in March of this year.  In March we did it clock-wise.  It had been awhile, but we knew there was a turn off somewhere to make a loop.  It was also 90 degrees.  We walked, and walked and did not see a turn off.  Then we saw what we thought was our trail heading out into the hinterlands.  We flagged down a mountain biker and asked him if we were close to the turn off. 

We must have looked really old to this guy.  He told us that the trail would be steep and arduous and that the best thing for us would be to turn around and go back the way we came.  We were probably within five to 10 feet of the turn off, we just could not see it from where we were standing.  We were hot, I was concerned that we didn’t have enough water, so we turned around and retraced our steps.  We should have ignored the guy on the bike. 

So, I am going to document this hike some more, and maybe do a better job than last time, so we can remember it next year.

One leaves the trail head at the end of Sarasota and walks up the trail. Go past the map on the kiosk, that is the trail you want.  The trail will split and you will go left.  At this point there is nothing to do except follow the trail.  Eventually this rock formation will come into view.



The trail continues on and goes down into a wash, and then comes back up.



When you come up out of the wash, you’ll see what looks like a four way intersection.  There is actually a well defined section that has been ridden by many mountain bikes.  You don’t want that.  Make a sharp right and continue on keeping the wash, and that rock formation, on your right.  It doesn’t look like a trail, it looks like a drainage ditch, but that is where you want to be.



The trail will eventually go back into the wash and then head left.  Here you can see the trail about to drop into the wash, over on the right is where you just came from.



After the wash, there is nothing to do except stay on the trail.  It climbs up, and you can see this.  The notch between those two hills is where you’re heading.



This is what confused us Sunday.  This is the Yetman trail, we could see it from where we were standing, and we knew we did not want to go in that direction.



This is the turnoff to complete the loop.  The hill that one climbs is not arduous, it’s just a little steep.  If we had continued on, instead of turning around we would have seen this turn and would be been fine.



Eventually the trail will come to this wide space at the base of the Cat Mountain trail.  Hang a right into the gravel filled wash, take the first right out, and continue back to the original split in the trail.



So, there are now more instructions for this hike, half of which is not on the trail map at the trail head.

What is this?  It’s not poop.  When I poke at it with a pole, it’s soft and looses its shape easily. Poop generally has some structure to it.  There are no bones in it, so I don’t think it’s owl pellets.  Did you know you can buy owl pellets on Amazon?  They’re sterilized and sold as a teaching tool for kids to see what owls can make.  It appears to be compacted fur, but I’m at a loss as to which end of the animal it came out of.



It was a good hike.  The temperature finally dropped so we were much more comfortable and not worried about sun stroke.