Gracepoints and I met Fiddlehead and his fiance at the Rocky Branch trail-head Saturday morning. I had seen several trip reports for Isolation over the previous week, indicating that the route had been getting a lot of use, and that the two bushwhacks were broken out nicely. The last report that I had read said that the rain on Friday had turned to snow and that there was about four inches of new snow Friday afternoon. There were a number of cars in the parking lot when we arrived, so we expected the trail to be packed down.
The trail was in great shape, and we cruised along to the Engine Hill bushwhack. There were tracks that continued on the trail, but it was obvious that most people turned onto the bushwhack route. The bushwhack passed through a lot of open woods with plenty of stands of birch. We commented on how the "bushwhack" was nicer than some Adirondack trails.
Along the Engine Hill bushwhack
When we reached the Isolation trail, we were only on it for a minute before the Isolation bushwhack started. As with the Engine Hill bushwhack, the Isolation bushwhack followed a nice route, and we seemed to make it to the Davis Path in no time. After a short bit on the Davis Path, we were on the Isolation spur and quickly at the summit. There was no view at the summit, but we took a break to eat.
On the summit with no view
The hike out was equally as nice as the hike in. At one point, we came into an opening and saw that the clouds had moved out and there were blue skies over the summit. We convinced ourselves that the blue skies didn't necessarily mean that there was any view at the summit at that point.
Looking back at the summit on the hike out
All in all, it was a nice day in the woods, even if we didn't have any views.