After leaving Huntington, the Trail mostly follows along the Burnt River. I sometimes was actually in the river as it was the flattest place to run the wagons. As an interesting sidelight...........following the actual Trail, one thing you tend to notice is the way these people managed to find the "easiest" route to follow. They were not civil engineers, but the people mapping the trail managed to find the route with the least slope to follow.
One reason for this is obviously the lack of pulling power. With two oxen and a heavy load, there is only so much incline that could be climbed, but the other issue is one I would never have thought of. These wagons were both tall and narrow, and because of this they had to go either straight up or straight down a hill. Otherwise they took a huge risk of rolling sideways down the hill. There just weren't any switch backs on any sections of the Trail that I have seen.
For going down steep hills they would lock the rear wheels with something like these:
They would lock the rear wheel and slide down the hill to give themselves some control. These people were tough and found simple solutions to some tough problems.
Now back to the trip........
We are on Sisley Creek Road....I was on this one earlier in the summer. The first time, I missed a turn and did not get to follow it to the end, but this time we went all the way. Franzwa states in his booke that this is the worst part of the trip due to the road conditions, but it is easily doable in any family car. It is all gravel road.
At this point, we are on the OT. It runs under the modern road..
In this next image you can see the road below that we were on. You are looking back towards the Burnt River and the way they came from the Huntington area. It somewhere along here that they got their first view of the larger mountains to the West. They must have made a huge impression on the flatlanders.
This next image is up on top of the hill as we come over the top. This is not exactly on the trail, it runs off to the right of this picture, but gives you some idea of what they were seeing.
We are now down in the valley and back on the Trail again....
As you come down into the valley and rejoin the modern highway, you find an old log cabin.
This cabin was the house of the teacher who taught in the school house on the other side of the road. Of course, I did not get a picture of the school.