Today we have a tough trail planned as our day hike, Hell’s Hole Trail. It starts off Young Road using Reynolds Trail and Hell’s Hole Trail going down to Workman Creek for 5+ miles to some waterholes along Workman Creek. And then you also have to climb back all those miles. As we start we assume we are the only people on the trail with no cars in the parking lot and no one else as far as we can see.
The first challenging place on the hike is the crossing of Workman Creek upstream. It is much larger than expected and there is no good place to stone hop so we have to take our shoes off and cross through the cold creek.
The descent is not that bad for a few miles and we enjoy the views along the trail which are quite expansive. As we are descending the slightly hot temperature are not impacting us badly but we are apprehensive about the return trail.
And then when we get closer to Hell’s Hole and the end of the trail and it feels like the trail literally drops down the canyon using large switchbacks. The descent is swift and long at the same time, it takes close to one hour for the last 0.3 miles.
As we almost reach the bottom shots ring out. We hide and start shouting to stop shooting. It feels like we are in a bad western as we try to get in cover while shouting downwards at whoever is shooting. Then the shooting ends and we descend almost running to find a group of young people camping and enjoying themselves by shooting at the stones surrounding them not caring about ricochets. They apologize and we explore the area a bit finding the cache that led us here and enjoying the waterfall before starting our ascent.
It is late afternoon when we start our ascent so the sun is not a problem anymore but the elevation gain certainly is. We make it ok to the creek, manage to not fall in it even though we are tired, our feet are freezing in the cold creek and we even slip a couple times. Then it is a relatively short distance to the car where we arrive around 10 PM. We are happy that this time we decided to hike on a Saturday instead of Sunday as we arrive at midnight home but this way we have one more day to recuperate before work.
