It was a perfect Saturday morning - a rare Saturday off for me from work! I was picked up at 4:45am at my house and we picked up a couple of other people and continued on to the town of pine valley. Once in Pine Valley we got to main street, took a left and followed main street until we came to a thin brown sign off to the right side of the road that indicated that we needed to turn right onto a dirt road to find the Forsythe Canyon Trail head.
We had planned to take the Forsythe Canyon trail (#3021 on maps) because it offers better views into St. George. From there we skirted around Burger and Signal Peaks, through Further Water, and ended up taking the Oak Grove Trail (# 3030 on maps) back to the Oak Grove Campground.
There was a crisp, cool feel in the air when we arrived at the trail head at 6:02. We got all our gear together and got on our way at 6:06. The trail head is marked by a big sign and the Forsythe Canyon trail is well maintained and easy to follow. As we started out, I took out my camera to take a picture of the trail head and realized that my batteries were just about dead. The two pictures I was able to take both came out blurry.
The first 2 miles of the trail is very pretty with about a half dozen river crossings - most just rock hopping, but there was an occasional makeshift log bridge. The rivers were beautiful as was the greenery surrounding them.
After 2 miles, we started gaining elevation at a steady pace. It was here that my GPS let me know that it was running out of batteries, and with my spare batteries in a different pack, I knew this would be a technically deficient hike...
We continued the gradual incline over the next 3 miles until we came to a sign indicating that the Blake-Gubler trail veered off to the right of the main trail. We continued on the main trail, passing Burger peak and coming to a cliff band that offered some great views of St. George. It was here that John and I (who had broken off from the main group) encountered Jeff and Kevin who had started from Oak Grove.
We chatted for a couple of minutes and then went on our way, exchanging keys to our cars. As we neared Signal Peak, I could feel it calling my name, begging me to hike it...So I asked John if he minded if I ran up to the summit or if he wanted to come along. (we hadn't originally planned to summit signal peak) He was a little hesitant due to the major uphill portion of the hike that we had just finished, but decided to come along.
My main concern was that I knew we had to be fast so our party that was behind us didn't pass us and not realize we were behind them. Although some of them were experienced hikers, the trail in this area is very hard to find in places and I knew I should be with them to help them. So we rushed up to the summit, signed the summit register which is found in a red can on the far west side of the summit, and headed back down.
On the way down from the summit, I was actually a little nervous as well, that we wouldn't be able to find the main trail because it was so faint. We ended up timing it perfectly as we saw the rest of our group hiking along the main trail below us as we descended. We joined up with them and continued toward the beautiful meadow at Further Water.
Further Water is a large, breathtaking meadow nestled between pine forests on both sides. Both times I've been there, I can't help but wonder if a bear is watching us from the safe cover of the pines. The meadow has a creek running through it and is dotted with green, bulb-shaped plants that grow in clusters and offer a beautiful contrast to the light yellow-green grassy meadow.
At the end of the meadow, the trail crosses the stream on the right side and continues up the hill. We continued on for another mile until we came to a second, smaller meadow. Not far past the second meadow, we came to a sign indicating Brown's Point trail to the left. What was not mentioned, save for someone writing it on the sign in pen, was that the trail to the Oak Grove campground was off to the right up the drainage.
We started up the drainage and encountered large snow banks. Jeff had shown us a cut on his hand earlier where he had fallen on one of these snow banks so we knew we needed to be careful. Not too long after starting up the main drainage, a second drainage comes in from the left, and we took it to get to the saddle. The last few hundred feet were severely up hill and took their toll on several in our group, but once to the saddle, we were rewarded with amazing views into Hurricane and Zion National Park.
From here, it was literally all down hill. 3 miles of knee crushing, steep down hill. I took it slower down the trail, trying to take it as easy as I could on my knees, which always seem to suffer the most on hikes.
We made it back to the car at 12:14 and waited about 55 minutes for the rest of our group to make it down. Overall it took 6 hours and 8 minutes and was about 12 miles long, including our excursion up to Signal Peak summit.
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