Moulton on a gorgeous winter day

Here is a view of the river on this gorgeous day.

I have already posted about hikes on three different trails at Moulton Falls Park (or at least two of them were about approaching the same trail from two different trailheads), but this week my hiking friends and I went to Moulton Park after a particularly beautiful snowfall. I thought I’d just write a post showing my pictures and talking about our hike. You can see the actual details of the hike, with ratings, distances, and elevation changes, driving directions, and so on, on my previous post about the park.

It was very cold on Wednesday morning, and the upper lot was closed, so this is the first hike we have taken from the lower lot. When we arrived, only one other car was in the parking lot, but we still encountered many more people in the park than we usually do on a winter weekday, and by the time we returned to the car, the lot was half full. it was such a beautiful day.

If you look very closely into the middle of this picture, slightly to the right, you’ll see a shower of snow falling from the trees down to the river. This is a view from the middle of the bridge over the river.

The sun was shining, the Lewis River was high, and snow was showering down from the laden treetops into the water. People were in a good mood and several stopped to remark about how happy they were to have come out. We walked all the way from the lower lot to the Hantwick trailhead and back, a distance we had so far not achieved before, about 5 to 6 miles. (The official sites on the walk say it is 2.4 miles one way, but we noticed that the sign that mentioned that distance was already partway along the trail, at the opening to the Bells Mountain Trail. I would guess there was another quarter to half mile more to the parking lot.)

Because the trails are easy and so well kept, the only slippery parts we encountered were the surfaces of the two wooden bridges, and they still had fairly good traction. You just had to take care. If you don’t park in the upper lot, you don’t even have to deal with the slope back and forth from the parking lot.

This is a lovely hike to take on a winter day. There are no very steep hills, the paths are either paved or cinder, and the views are lovely.