Six Mile Run – Blue and Yellow in the Snow

Hiking Six Mile Run Reservoir’s BLUE and YELLOW trails from Canal Road in the snow.

With several inches of snow still on the ground, we decided to check out the BLUE trail from the Canal Road parking at Six Mile Run Reservoir.

It had been forever since we’d visited – so long ago that it predates our trail blog (1/2006) and doesn’t even appear in my old fashioned journal that goes back to 2003. Yikes.

For detailed hike directions see our main “Six Mile Run – Canal Road” page.

We hadn’t been back because we just weren’t enthralled with our hike here many years ago.

While walking along the edges of fields can be interesting visually, it really stretches the definition of “hiking” for us and there really isn’t much to see while in the forest.

In reality it’s a nice short hike under an hour away – we shouldn’t be so picky!

This is a good choice for snow – the trail was well traveled with bootprints, and ski and snowshoe tracks.

The trails are easily managed on ski/snowshoes and the field edges are a nice option when there’s snow.

The trails in this park have changed several times over the years. When we first hiked it, we made a loop with BLUE and YELLOW but the YELLOW trail is no longer on the map because it’s too wet.

The RED trail now continues to a Rt. 27 parking area (see “Six Mile Run Reservoir – Red Trail”) as well as leads to a lot on Jacques Lane (see “Six Mile Run from Jacques Lane in the Snow“). 

The RED trail no longer officially goes to Canal Rd though – which basically kills the only loop hike option from this parking lot. (It’s not on the map, last I’d read it’s closed… but people may still hike it…)

The other big change from years ago is biking is allowed and this park is pretty heavily used for that.

We opted for MICROspikes instead of snowshoes as the snow had been on the ground for nearly a week and had been tramped down. It was on the verge – either would work. Much later in the hike it would have been better to have the snowshoes.

BLUE starts out meandering through fields before entering forest.

Often, the fields are visible while in the woods and we saw ski tracks switching from the trail to the edge of the fields.

We were surprised to see YELLOW still marked on the brown plastic wand at it’s intersection with BLUE. Soon after that intersection, the snow got less packed and harder to work through.

I guess everyone was turning around or taking YELLOW back.

Eventually we got to the squiggly area on the map. While not nearly as bad as the orange trail in the other park of the park, we find these twisty biking-orientated trails annoying to hike.

The BLUE trail eventually pops out of the woods and follows allow the edges of open fields, with some farm houses off in the distance.

The snow got less and less worn down and eventually there were no more tracks to follow so we turned around. On the way back, we followed the field edges which bypassed that squiggly section.

At the junction with YELLOW, we turned left onto that. Even though it was no longer on the park map, the trail was full of bootprints so we decided to check it out.

We had to climb over and through a few blowdowns, there were no blazes (save some faded) and we just followed others before us – who knows if we were even on the trail.

There was a layer of wet ice under the snow, crunching with a disconcerting sound that made it seem like we were walking on a half frozen pond. YELLOW ran along Six Mile Run so there were views of the stream for a bit.

Overall – Nice easy hike, and good for cross-country skis or snowshoes. Taking YELLOW was moderately interesting for us but not something we’d recommend and in most seasons it would be too wet.

Miles: 3.8

Wildlife spotted: 5 deer + 1 baby deer = six deer spotted at Six Mile Run.