You took your picture at the place I have marked "360VIEW" in the first map below. The narrow trail that was to your right is the one heading west in my map, finishing with a yellow section (my color-code for expert only) that ends on top of the hill:Rubicon_Rider wrote:Yes that picture was taken down from where there is a yellow sign that Fish and Game posted about not having loaded guns in the wild life perserve. We turned right after that sign and the trail got very narrow so we turned around then went past the sign in the other direction and ended up on another peak with a good view of French Meadows Lake (water level looked low). We continued down the mountain where we crossed a creek then hit French Meadow Road, the trail ended but my gps showed it continuing. We turned around and headed back the way we came toward Robinson, pulled over for a refreshment when we saw you. I let Phil lead after that stop and he went right instead of left and i had to chase him down to redirect.
If you didn't get to the top of that hill, you probably turned around before that section began. Here is the yellow sign you saw:
The creek you crossed after heading south from there is Talbot Creek, it is shown as a blue hex marker in this map (that means water crossing, but the blue line you were on is just a road):
You didn't need to turn around and go back the way you came. See my road junction ("X") labelled F96F51, it is a junction between two green lines (green lines are easy roads). You could have turned there and gone back to Soda Springs Road via that route, making it a loop.