I took a trip up to the Cripple Creek trail today, starting from the pipeline road.   Trail is in great shape,with evidence of recent work (logs cut and maybe even some tread work!).

There were about 12 trees down over the trail - all except this one were easy stepovers/walk arounds - this one is going to be difficult to remove, although the good news is that it is close to the beginning of the trail on one of the first rockslides - it was probably 36" plus in diameter:

Made it all the way up to the 4635 crossing - almost no snow until the clearcut below 4635 and then we had sections of 12-18" of snow on the trail itself.  Some was easy to walk on, some was postholing - fortunately it didn't last very long.

 The 4635 road had 6-12" of snow on most of it:

The trail on the other side of the road was clear - we walked it up maybe 100 yards or so.

I did a little trail maintenance on the way up, removing a bunch of branches from the trail, and clearing a few messes. I was particularly proud of this one:

Went from impassible to a "step thru" (since the log broke).

On the way back, I investigated what kind of looked like an old trail junction in the hillside meadow.  It looked like another trail intersected just about in the middle of the meadow, heading due west.  After following it, I think it is just a game trail used by the deer and elk that appear to be plentiful up there.  Lots of signs of them (pellets all over the place, and bedding areas).  We walked over to the little stream that feeds the "grotto" down below but didn't go any farther.

It was a beautiful day up on the woods.

I know things have been very quiet around here but I'd be really interested in what adventures others are having during this winter.