Rice's Crossing

The BYLT recently acquired some large contiguous sections of land that extend from the place we used to stop (the old crossing bridge abutments) down to Bullard's Bar.  Looking at the land on Google Earth, it appeared that it would be quite difficult and costly to build a trail that went along the River. Frank wanted to see if we could forge a route either down by the water or high up on the bank. The Land Trust wants to make the area accessible to the public for hiking, fishing, kayaking, etc. we drove up the hill to the "caretaker's" house replete with travel trailers, chickens, goats, and a trashy burn pile.  There was some talk of re-locating the family up the hill closer to their solar panels.  This would leave the lovely level area for parking and hiking a smallish loop in the more open area. Our group of 9 (including BYLT's Sean), charged down to the river to see the spectacular, rocky bar (French Bar), 

  We retraced our steps and headed off on a lateral that was sort of parallel to the river, passing the abandoned skeleton of the caretaker's permanent house. We clipped the overgrown vegetation, attempted to avoid the vigorous poison oak, trying to make headway  down and up rocky, steep slopes. Realizing the public would be as uninterested as we were becoming, we returned to the cars to discard some clothing and tools. We headed straight up from there in steep but lovely open oak grasslands. It would be too steep for the public which would necessitate building switchbacks. Towards the top, and now possibly off the BYLT land, we started getting into serious poison oak. Unavoidable poison oak. After wallowing in it for a while, most of us turned around to find an open, poison oak-free, lunch spot. Just as we were sitting down, the explorers joined us.  

Later, back at the cars, Sean, Dave, and Frank did some more exploring while the rest of us got a good hike in back to Bridgeport. The exploring guys met us there with the cars. Depending on who was reporting, we (I) had hiked 7 miles with a 1300 foot elevation gain.  Some of that was in the trailess morass of vegetation. 

Lunch spot

Abandoned permanent house

French Bar

Franks map