Lost Valley Trail in the Weldon Springs conservation area is a trail I haven't done since April 2010. It looks like this trail has also gotten some new mileage signs since I last visited, as well as possibly rerouted or remeasured; in April of 2010 I marked the trail as 9 miles long, the latest edition of Steve Henry's book says the trail is about 9.5 miles, and the markers on the trail itself pronounced the trail as a little over ten miles. That officially makes Lost Valley the longest hike I've completed yet. And it felt good!
There was a large group about a half a mile behind me, but they disappeared after awhile, and other than that I ran into no other hikers until the near end of the trail. However there were what seemed like millions of mountain bikers... all were very polite and friendly as they zoomed by, though sometimes I had trouble hearing them coming up some of the twisty turns with low visibility.
A smidge over ten miles took me about 4 hours. I didn't take any pictures again because I'm really working on the hiking, and since this was a revisit I figured I could spare the pictures this time around. I made sure I packed an extra water bottle because even though it was cool, the sun was pretty strong on a lot of the trail. Loved doing this one again! I'm ready to do another ten mile trail and then move up to twelve soon, I hope!
Almost Spring Break
5 weeks ago
