Today Emily and I had the chance to explore a now trail. We arrived at the trail head later than we would have liked to. All the parking spots were gone and we were left to park on the side of the road. No problem, dive a truck and park at extreme angles at the side of he road.
The first part of the Ice House Canyon trail is a road, or should I say, a driveway for some cabins that are located up the canyon. The trail is well maintained and there is plenty of shade for the first mile and a half. Trail follows runs along side a stream that runs through the canyon. There are plenty of trees as well.
The stream has plenty of water, which surprised me for this late in the year. On our way back down the trail later in the day, the stream had several people in it or sitting by it. This was mostly in the first mile up the canyon. IT looked like plenty of people wanted in the cool stream in the shade on a hot summer day.
It seemed the the stream was fed from springs. We had noticed a few places on the trail where water seemed to be seeping our or running out of the sides of the canyon. As we got higher up the canyon, the stream beds we could see were dry. There is one spring further up the trail from where we stopped for lunch that runs almost year long.
Lunch was mini pita pockets with your choice of pepper jack, Swiss or cheddar cheese as well as peperoni or salami. We ate lunch and relaxed in the shade of white fur and incense cedar trees just past the two mile marker.
Once lunch was over, we headed back down the trail. It was about noon and people were traveling up the trail. It was getting hot it was nice when we got back to the stream area with all the trees and shade.
It was a great hike and one we are going to do again. We will start earlier as we went to get all the way up to Ice House Saddle and possibly to one or more of the nearby peaks.
