Trail Overview
Top Spur - FS 1828118 starts by turning right off the main access road onto a popular, well-maintained gravel path that leads to the Top Spur Trailhead. The wide track runs smoothly under a dense pine canopy with only a few minor potholes before the parking lot. Past the trailhead, the drive changes completely. The road narrows hard and gets heavily overgrown with thick, encroaching brush. This restricted section is short, only about a half-mile before the road dead-ends, but it quickly turns impassable for standard vehicles thanks to large downed logs across the way. To get through, plan on bringing a saw to clear the deadfall or a capable rock-crawling 4x4 to get over it. Gaps in the treeline open up to nice views of the surrounding forest along the way. Because of the overgrowth and downed trees past the parking area, skip that final half-mile unless you are fully set up for heavy trail clearing.
Difficulty
The technical rating for this route is a tale of two distinct halves. The primary transit leading up to the Top Spur parking area comfortably earns a Level 1 rating; it is a wide, smoothly graded gravel road with only minor potholes, easily managed by any standard car or truck under dry conditions. However, the brief half-mile section immediately past the parking lot aggressively spikes the difficulty to a Level 2 (or higher) due to intense brush overgrowth and significant downed trees. This final segment is considered fundamentally impassable for normal vehicles unless you have a chainsaw to clear the path or a specialized rock-crawling rig to climb over the logs. Given the extremely short distance before the dead-end, pushing past the parking lot is not recommended.
