The sign at the gate to Thistle Ridge Road strikes me as a little puzzling. There are several controlled hunts with rifles in this area, but I'm not clear on how you can have a rifle hunt with no shooting.

Ed Harrod and I had a great hike up Thistle Ridge with several sighting of White-tailed deer and one Blacktailed deer. To our great surprise we also saw a heard of Elk, three calves and 5 cows on the crest of the Middle Ridge. (See Additional Photo below)

Where Thistle Ridge joins Middle Ridge we turned north and hiked to the top of Middle Knob (1816'), where we stopped for lunch and had a great panoramic view of the area. After lunch we descended via the North Gate Trail to the Middle Feeder Barn and then walked out the road through the Main Entrance.

Statistics for the day: 6.6 miles, 1390 ft accumulative climb, 4 ½ hrs