More Secret Chatfield Trails

The last time I rode my bike over at Chatfield State Park, I spotted another rider way over across the field. He was riding at a good clip so I knew he wasn’t simply riding across the field. He had to be on a trail that I didn’t know about. On my ride today, I found the trail. It is a single track trail that I suppose could be quite muddy though that wasn’t a problem today. It’s on the west side of the park close to the trees that line the lake. It’s really more like a rut about 8 inches wide. I could tell that lots of people had ridden the trail before even though it is not obvious how to get to it. This is what it looks like:



While riding down this trail, I came to an even more secret trail. A picture of it is below. What you see in the picture is a completely overgrown trail that is actually paved with asphalt. I didn’t venture any further into the woods than what you see but I know that beyond the woods in the photo is a is a little section of the lake. From earlier exploration, I also know that there is a similar trail on the other side of this portion of the lake. It is my theory that these trails connected to each other at some time but are now separated by this part of the lake that is about 40 feet across. I wonder what happened.