South Nasty
Introduction
Your sanity will be questioned; surely you must love the long muddy hills. Since it has a common start/finish with the North Nasty, feel free to do them back to back for double goodness. Fair warning that the lower 7A section between Bridge Ave. up to Leif has a couple extra challenges, sometimes there are campers along the way and the vegetation is overgrown. The vegetation is grass, sticker bushes, and nettles.
Parking
Park at the Leif Erikson trail head on Germantown Road.
Description
Start up Cannon to the parking lot with Wildwood, then go up Germantown. (Some skip the next section, turn left on Wildwood and rejoin at Waterline to avoid road and sketchy trail). Watch for cars coming down the blind turns. Just about when you can see the flashing red light at the top of Germantown is a trail to the left. Honest, it’s there, on the inside of the turn, to the left. This is a trail with no name because it’s a bit iffy in places; it’s safer to keep going up Germantown to Skyline to Waterline to rejoin the route. But if you decide to proceed, watch your step to stay on the trail and at times it’s more like bushwacking through the shin high vines. When you see the big green watertower you are homefree, jog across the meadow then head down Waterline. When Waterline hits Leif then take a short left then right behind the dirt mound to continue down Tolinda to Germantown. At Germantown, cross to the left for safety and watch for oncoming cars; cross right onto Bridge Avenue and stay left side of road to the sidewalk, cross-back over Bridge to turn right for the long grind up Springville. It’s a paved road with little traffic until you get to the gate then watch for Bonzai mountain bikers until you get to the orange gate, touch the gate, take a breath, and then turn downhill. Go pass Hardesty and Trillium and turn left on Ridge Trail allllll the way down to the stairs down to Bridge Ave (again). Turn right and stay to the right this time, running along the shoulder trail for 0.37 mi through the parking turnout to Firelane 7A. In rainy season it’s a creek you can run up; once you get up off the road you run along a fence and at some point the trail dwindles to pretty small and that’s when you should notice that the trail has actually turned up to the right into the trees. Do not follow further along the fence. I don’t know why but don’t want to find out.
Follow this up until you go through the steep muddy mess that drops you out onto Leif Erikson at an unmarked location. Turn around and look down and marvel at what you just climbed up. There are some footprints trail across Leif up the bank, but continue to the right along Leif 0.14 miles to the “To Firelane 7” sign. (Note there used to be a trail up at 0.05 miles but it has been taken out of service.) Just keep going up as you merge into other trails; after you pass Ridge Trail the next trail to take is Trillium and a short jaunt down to Wildwood, left down Wildwood to Oil Line. Of course up Oil Line and keep going up (yes you have seen some of this before, you are not hallucinating), this time past Ridge and Trillium until Hardesty. At Wildwood it’s a short jog to the right before continuing down to the left on Hardesty, winding your way down to Leif before enjoying a couple mile cool down to the parking lot and close the loop at the bottom of Cannon Trail.
When to Do
Firelane 7 is a bit infamous for poison oak but that trail is especially delicious when muddy and the poison oak is the least: Winter.
Trail Log
Map
Elevation
Ascending: 2929’
Strava Segment
https://www.strava.com/segments/10124162
Note that this segment includes a trail piece that has been re-routed; it's the section up from Leif Erikson to Firelane 7, the current route continues about another 0.1 mi before cutting up left at the "To Firelane 7" sign.