Upper Hall Valley

Overall great little trail. We camped and hiked up to Gibson lake. Pretty decent little water crossing just past the second waypoint but no problem at all for any truck/off road capable suv. Agree with the last review the road gets pretty rough/rocky quickly and I was shocked to see a few crossovers (rav4, crv) and even a Corolla…? My stock JKUR with KM2s @ 20 psi was fine but would not attempt this in a “cross over” with street tires…

Drove to the gate at 11500 feet, which is the end of the FS Trail. You can see a couple modern buildings of what appears to be an active mine just past the gate. No snow on the trail, but plenty around near the top. See the photos taken at the gate entrance. Lots of people camping all along the trail, but the two official FS campgrounds were closed. River was running very full and quickly, buts its generally no more than a couple feet deep at most. Keep the little ones away, for sure.

Ran this trail yesterday as part of the hike to Whale Peak, no snow yet. Nice little trail that leads to a mining area, although you can’t get too close to the mine as there’s a gate blocking the area due to high radiation. Okay views, seems like it’s really just used to get you to camping/hiking. I’d probably give this trail closer to a 3 rating just due to how rocky it is. No problems in a lifted 4Runner on 33s at 18psi, but I’d be worried about a puncture/sidewall blowout in a vehicle with a smaller profile tire.

Arrived at around 11am this afternoon, maybe saw 6 people the whole time we were up. Road is definitely rocky with plenty of sharpies out lookin’ to pop your tires so airing down is essential! Plenty of dispersed camping, most of the sites are along a beautiful creek which is extremely beautiful. You have to turn around at the end due to an active mining claim, but that is absolutely not an issue. I love this trail and will absolutely be back to go camping later in the fall.

Easy trail but pretty rocky and bumpy; I aired down to 17psi and it was comfortable but still slow-going. Plenty of camping with the best site being the last one; it’s the only one that really offers any views.

Love this trail. I first ran it in the late 1960's. Nice stream, beautiful views of snow capped mountains and really nice campsites.

Ran Upper Hall Valley all the way to the gate at the top. Trail is in great shape with only a couple of snow drifts encroaching partway onto the trail. Easily passable while staying on trail. There was one spot where a tree had fallen across the road over winter, but it was already cut and cleared (probably by the folks who work the mine at the top). Great easy trail with lots of campsites. Perfect start for the wheeling season! : )

This is a pretty trail all the way through so when I finished Webster Pass I hoped over to run this out and back as the sun was setting. The last time I was on this trail was in 2016, and it was definitely a 2 at that time, it was feeling somewhere in between a 2 and 3 these days and there are some lines forming with harder and easier ways up. Highly recommend this trail, especially on a weekday.

Easily open to the top, some snow melt water running down much of the road but thankfully no real erosion. Crowded towards the base even on a Friday with campers, but further up it wasn't bad at all. Managed to claim one of the few remaining good dispersed sites mid Friday afternoon. Much more crowded than it used to be pre-C19.

Great trail for beginers like me, nothing challenging but made me realize I need to upgrade my stock truck suspension and tires ASAP. Found nice dispersed camping spots with stream flowing through them and plenty of room for 3-5 vehicles / camp sites. I hadn't signed up for this site yet so next time I will take shots of the road conditions.

Just ran this trail for the first time and it was pretty awesome. There was a ton of others up there camping and hiking. One thing I would like to note is at Waypoint 5 there is another short trail that takes you to the opposite side of the valley. This trail is not labeled and I would say it is a little bit more difficult. Pinstriping will happen as this trail has some overgrown bushes. Overall an awesome trail and would recommend anyone to give it a go.

Very beautiful scenery of snow-capped mountain peaks and the trail also follows a beautiful creek. Turned around at the campground. Easy trail to that point. Beyond, it is significantly different from what I could see. This trail leads to the trail head for Webster Pass and Red Cone.

Ran this today and the trail was fully open to the end at the gate for the mine. There were a few snow drifts partially covering the road near the end that look like they had only recently melted to the point where they left enough of the road uncovered to get through. The trail being on the southwestern face of the mountain helps it melt out faster. The opposite side of the valley still has a lot of snow, but the whole area is melting fast. This was a fun trail with some nice scenery but nothing technically challenging. I even saw a Subaru Outback near the top that had apparently made it. Lots of people camping along the first couple miles. Definitely a popular dispersed camping area.

Webster, Red Cone, and Upper Hall Valley are all 100% impassible back at the edge of NF/Private land boundary as of 1 month ago ago; there's a 8-9' high snow mound the rancher at the end of the private land built with an excavator to keep people out during snow season since they kept getting stuck. Snowmobiles should have the clearance to get around, but as of March there was easily 2-3' of pack on the road way before Handcart Gulch camping area and it was just snowshoe accessible. No idea if it's part of the Platte mud season road closures or not this year.

There are multiple large, downed trees 8.4 miles into the trail from 285 that make the trail impassable. This is just an unusually bumpy/uncomfortable trail even with a soft suspension. I wasn't able to air down, though, so maybe that was the main issue.

Had nice run on Hall Valley/Handcart Gulch. Went out to the top mine turn around and then back; down the Missouri Mine spur (which was open and showed no signs of being closed or slashed off). The spur to the Missouri Mine is quite a bit more difficult than the rest of the main trail. Very rocky, some large boulders, and most of the trail is also a creek bed where melt and mine runoff descend down to the larger creek. It is also very narrow so be prepared for pinstripes in almost any vehicle. The mine itself is in decent shape with 1 remaining building and lots of large piles of tailings.

This is a nice area to go explore. Once you get out of treeline the road opens up to some great views of the valley and old mining operations. I would give a higher rating but there is just not a whole lot to do or see other than the drive the road out and back. This is a great trail for fall foliage!

Spur to Missouri Mine closed permanently by USFS - new barrier across spur before stream crossing with "No Motor Vehicles" sign. Trail in great condition, light traffic. Snow on road at higher elevations, less than 2" deep. Snow on mountains beginning to accumulate, evidence of slides visible at higher elevations. Turnaround in front of gate at the end of the valley is beginning to get overgrown, trailers will have difficulty turning around here. Walked spur to Missouri Mine - spots covered by snow to over 12" deep.

We rode the trail to the Beaver Creek trailhead. The trail was open and clear but there was a lot of traffic, 4x4's and ATV's. Not surprising considering the holiday weekend. There is a fire ban in the area and we stopped to talk with some rangers who were out handing out tickets to anyone firing up. Mind the signs, they are enforcing.

This is a really cool trail to do around october....a chance for light snow dustings makes the landscape really fun to look at!

It was a nice day and the trail was relatively normal with no special notes about physical trail conditions other than weather. The current state is snow/muddy in some shady places and it looks like the area has gotten some snow. The creek is frozen about a 1/4 inch thick and we stopped about .25 miles after the river crossing because the shade on that side of the mountain was leaving some sketchy drifts. We were out for a joy ride and didn't have our winched rig so no risk. Snow capable vehicles and groups should be the only ones to attempt to get to the mine unless temps stay high during the day and it doesn't snow in the next few days. Otherwise a great day on a beautiful trail, highly recommended for a fun afternoon!

It was the day before Thanksgiving, and me and another friend decided to go see how much snow was up above the town of Grant. We decided on Hall Valley as it is normally a smooth dirt road in the summer and we didn't want to get caught with any surprise boulders as we were throttled down blasting through the snow. The snow down in the trees wasn’t nearly as deep as I expected it to be, only hitting depths of 8’’-12’’. Once out of the trees, we continued to run into deep drift after deep drift. The LS motor and 42s had met its match for the day. Our trip odometers read 3.5 miles from the start to where we turned around; however that was a lot of back and forth driving at the end, so it was definitely closer to 3 miles total for the trip. Please remember, do not attempt to snow bash alone, and always be prepared for a worst case scenario. It is a good idea to have extra food, water, and clothing on a snow trip like this one today. Also, recovery gear is essential in case you get into a sticky situation.