Greensprings Loop 5-29-26

Photos by Kay

The weather was true to the forecast—rainy and chilly. Yet, a dozen of us donned our rain gear and headed up Highway #66 to the spot where the PCT crosses #66. We turned left onto Old Hyatt Prairie Road and then took the left road to the Greensprings Loop trailhead. 

We hiked the Greensprings Loop trail around Greensprings Mountain. When the sky is clear or nearly so, there are stunning views in a couple of open crossings along the journey. Those of us who’ve enjoyed this trail before conjured up visions of the views in our memories and tried our best to relay them to others.

Given the rain over many previous days, the trail was quite wet, with puddles here and there, but definitely no troubles.

Persistent rain followed us, including a brief interlude where the chill brought down some ‘frozen graupel’. As always, an affable group of intrepid hikers and lovers of the natural world, we had a grand time in spite of some soaked outer gear (but for those fully clad in rain proof clothes).

Happily, we spotted many species of wildflowers in the dense forest: The largest Western Trillium leaves we’d ever seen (post blooms), Pussy Ears, Western Columbine, Checker Lily, lots of Plumed Solomon’s Seal, Fawn Lily, Bachelors Buttons, Blue Dicks, and Siskiyou Iris. A loud Pileated Woodpecker called. 

The hike was a ‘lollypop’ shape amounting to 3.4 miles and about 400’ elevation gain.

Report by Elisabeth and Kay