A Return To The Hiking Trail That Isn't A Trail

I got directions off the internet for the Riverside Trail in Parishville. I followed the directions and, when I arrived at the trail head, immediately realized it was the same "trail" (I use the term loosely) which I attempted last year, thinking it was the Sylvan Falls Trail. It wasn't. In fact, it wasn't even a trail, just an old logging road which ended in the middle of the forest. But ever the optimist, I figured maybe the county had improved and renamed it. They had, after all, tacked a road map up on the kiosk:

So off we went on the old logging road. The footing was tricky because of all the branches on the ground:

I was hoping that I'd see where the trail supposedly branched off to the right, taking us down to the river. But we walked quite a way, and I saw nothing. Furthermore, there were no trail markers - no, not a single one:

I saw what may have been a trail, but was probably a deer path, off through the wild blackberries. So off we went, hoping it would take us to the river:

Pretty soon we were kind of lost. Walking through the brambles was very hard on my bare legs, so I tried pushing through the ferns instead. Alas, they were so thick that I couldn't see branches and logs on the ground. In the end, walking anywhere was difficult:

When it became obvious that we were not on a trail and weren't going to stumble onto one, I tried to retrace our steps back to the old logging road:

We did indeed find the logging road and began walking back to the car:

The day was still young and I was already forming plans for another hike somewhere else:

The scenery was pretty but the footing was tricky and there was no destination on this so called trail. I was, I admit, irritated:

But soon the dogs saw our car ahead of us and their joy was boundless:

But this hike was a bust - again. You'd think I'd learn. But stay tuned for tomorrow's post, because this does have a happy ending: