On Wednesday we had 8 hikers come out to hike the Snailback Falls Trail and Kerby Flat Trail. Both of these were new hikes for the group.

We drove to Selma, then about 4 miles out Illinois River Road to the parking area for the Snailback Falls Trail. It was a chilly 36° when we started hiking around 10 AM. We stepped over a metal gate and started our way up the steep rough road.

We could see the fog and low clouds in the distance, but were happy to be in the sunshine. As we climbed up the road, we saw a bunch of yellow flowers in bloom. As we continued to climb, we warmed up and had a wardrobe change.

Shortly after hiking around 1 mile we came to a forested area. There was a sign on one of the trees that said: STAY ALIVE BY STAYING OUT Poisinous gases, arsnic & asbestos you have been warned!!! monitored by cameras. We stopped for a photo and pretended we were getting sick, but I promise, no hikers were injured while taking this picture. I had told the group that I had found out this was posted by someone with a mining claim. The misspelled words, and no forest service or BLM insignia was a big giveaway.

As we made our way through the forest, we could see some damage from what I believe was the Klondike fire. We encountered some downfall and made our way around it. One place had some slippery mud and one hiker went down, but was not injured. We could see snailback falls so some decided to not continue. A few of us continued just a bit farther. Randy and I made our way to the bottom of the falls. The view wasn't that much better, so everyone was able to have a good view.

We made our way back down the trail and to the cars. We had hiked 3.02 miles and had an elevation gain of 1054 feet.

We drove 0.25 of a mile to the trailhead for Kerby Flat. It was there that we sat down and had lunch. We had a wonderful view of Pearsoll Peak and Gold Basin Butte. Both were covered in snow. We could also see the Illinois River.

We started down the Kerby Flat and Liz decided she would stay behind and enjoy the sunshine. We entually made our way down to Kerby Flat.

We were amazed at how high the water flow was. We looked back up the hill and could see the railing where we had our lunch. We continued on and eventually the trail was beside the Illinois river.

We came to a place where another water source entered the river. I looked it up on my map to find out it was Deer Creek. It also had a heavy flow and looked more like a river than a creek. We made our way back along Forest Road 4103-011. We could see where the creek had risen and left water in many places along the road.

We came to a carin and started back up the Kerby Flat trail. After a little more climbing, we ran into Liz. We took the group photo with the Illinois river in the background. Then we all made our way back up to the cars. We hiked 3.31 miles and had an elevation gain of 546 feet.