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It was great weather - if you like rain, thunder and lightning!
True to form, a group gathered at the usual place, at the usual time - despite the fact that earlier in the day parts of the valley had experienced rain, thunder and lightning - and those coming from the north end of the valley saw one or more of these on their way to the parking lot. But a sense of optimism prevailed, bringing to mind the saying: "Every dark cloud has a silver lining, but lightning kills hundreds of people each year who are trying to find it!" 1
By the time the group gathered at the parking lot it had pretty-much stopped raining, but we still needed to make a decision: Where to go? Several ideas were voiced, such as Mineral fork, where we hoped that the foul weather would reduce the likelihood that we'd get run over by people on 4-wheelers, and Dog Lake, which was dismissed as the descent down Butler Fork was likely to be extremely muddy and we were likely to get soaked by water-transfer from wet leaves. We finally settled on attempting to do Broad's Fork, shooting for the "Upper" Meadow with the beaver pond - a traditional early-season hike, even in bad weather. (Read about our hike into Broad's Fork in 2005 if you have any doubt about that...)
Piling into two cars, Chris drove Ron and I while the others piled into Dale's car to assist with pedaling and we soon arrived at the trailhead at the "S"-curve. When we arrived, we saw a USFS ranger get out of an official-looking white truck, grab an official-looking shovel, move a few bits of official-looking debris - and then return to the truck and leave: We were wondering aloud if that had been the extent of the activities, or if we'd just seen the tail-end of a long day's work in the rain.
Starting on the trail, we couldn't decide if it was still raining, or if the trees were simply combing and dropping moisture upon us: We later decided on the latter, as we felt no rain when we finally broke out into an open area on a west-facing traverse. By this time, the weather had cleared even more, providing some indirect sunlight and visible bands of blue sky in the west. Despite the good omens, we continued onwards.
It is fortunate that the trail itself isn't particularly muddy even when wet, as compared to some other trails that we frequent. The trail's bed seems to be somewhat rocky and there doesn't seem to be too much in the way of the sort of dirt that turns into sticky mud when mixed with water: Even so, when walking along it over the nearly four-mile round-trip, one is likely to get at least a little wet and muddy! Having rained earlier in the day, the stream was roaring and the still-wet leaves tended to soak the pant legs of those walking along the trail - particularly of the person in the lead - so I was happy to leave the job of point-man to someone else, usually Dale on the way up, although Ron was well-protected with his water-resistant rain pants.
Even though water wasn't falling from the sky anymore, we often experienced brief, cold showers: Since parts of this trail are quite steep, one is wont to grab onto small trees to aid in climbing and stability. This frequently had the side-effect of shaking the tree, causing the person under it experience a very-localized rainstorm! An unavoidable consequence, but annoying nonetheless.
A short distance past the bridge I spotted a fairly large white balloon, its string stuck in a tree. While I wasn't willing to tramp out into the brush and get my pants even wetter, Dale and Ron were. From a distance I could see that something was attached to the string, but when Dale and Ron arrived, they could see that was just a small stick: Freeing the balloon of its ballast, they let it go and it quickly rose out-of-sight.
Reaching the "lower" meadow we did not see any snow on the ground nearby but there were numerous small ponds in the trail. Continuing upwards, the route steepened even more and again, with the "road base" of the trail being somewhat rocky, the going wasn't too bad despite the combination of inclination and wetness. Finally reaching an area with large, exposed flat slabs of rock, we knew that we weren't too far from our destination, and within a few minutes we broke out into the "upper" meadow.
At about this time, the sun had managed to find a few breaks in the clouds so we were treated to a nice splash of alpenglow which lit up the bare rocks of the peaks and snow-filled cwms alike. The meadow itself was free of snow, although occasional patches could be seen in the shaded areas. The temperature was quite cool - probably in the high 40's or low 50's but the the combination of fairly high humidity and the lack of wind made it quite bearable - at least while one was moving.
A few minutes after the lead group arrived at the meadow we heard from Bruce who reported that Gordon had started down, having turned around in the vicinity of the "upper" end of the "lower" meadow: Fortunately, Gordon had no ailments to report, but he'd decided that based on last week's hike (the latter part of which he was afflicted by a complaining knee) that he'd better not overdue it and, especially, try to negotiate the steeper, slicker parts of the trail in the still-adequate light.
About 10 minutes later Bruce appeared in the meadow where we continued to look at the alpenglow, snowfields and transient waterfalls whilst eating our snacks, and donning our jackets. After posing for the "obligatory group picture" (sans Gordon) we started down, taking advantage of the last of the daylight to descend the steepest part of the trail. Not too long after starting our descent, Ron appeared on the radio expressing a degree of incredulity that we'd actually gone up this stuff!
Fortunately, the trip down was also uneventful: A few minor spills on the steep parts as one inevitably slips on the wet rocks and mud, but nothing that provoked any really bad swear words. By the time we got back to the bridge it was dark enough that some of the party started using their flashlights, but the combination of the familiarity of the trail and its relatively good condition made for fairly easy going. By this time, Chris, who'd been in the lead, had met with Gordon and the two took their time walking down the trail but even so, they arrived at the parking lot several minutes ahead of the rest of the group.
Finally reaching the parking lot, we took another group picture (to include Gordon this time) and piled into our vehicles and headed down. At the parking lot at the bottom of the canyon we stumbled to our respective vehicles and went our separate ways.
1 Attributed to E.L. Kersten, Ph.D.
Relatively little mining or prospecting was done in Broads Fork: It was a source of timber (a logging trail can be followed down to within a few hundred feet of the canyon bottom, generally paralleling the stream) and it's biggest historical note has to do with the fact that there was a short-lived hydroelectric power plant at its base: The remains of its penstock can supposedly be seen near the bottom.
As for the name "Broads Fork" the origination is unknown. In the 19th century, it was known by several similar names, such as "Broughts Fork," "Brocks Fork" and "Borck Fork" - and it wasn't until 1908 that the name "Broads Gulch" was applied to it. It is suspected that the current "Broads Fork" is a perversion of one of the earlier names.
Much of the above information was from the book "The Lady in the Ore Bucket" by Charles Keller.
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