Trails Used
West Ridge Trail, Mowglis Trail, Grotto Cave Spur, Hanging Rocks Spur
Notes
This was an interesting traverse - up West Ridge Trail, down Mowglis Trail all the way to Sculptured Rocks Road. West Ridge Trail had a whole bunch of unmarked routes that diverged from and then rejoined the trail. I wasn't sure what the deal was with those - maybe the trail was rerouted a while ago? Most of them were not blocked off with branches, as previous routes usually are. The trail and summit were, as expected, quite crowded with people enjoying the beautiful weather and fantastic foliage. We then started our descent of Mowglis Trail off of Cardigan.
The first interesting part was the Grotto Cave Spur. It's very easy to walk right by it without noticing - it's marked with a small cairn and a faded blue blaze on the rock. From there, it's just about possible to find enough other faded blue blazes on rocks to follow the trail. The last blue blaze we saw was just above a steep, wet slab (which itself was difficult to both descend and climb). At the bottom of that, we didn't see any more blazes and there weren't very many signs of any paths. We followed one possible path straight ahead, but it just led to the top of this very large, very steep open slab. The map that came with the SNHTG showed the spur bearing left near the end, so from the bottom of the wet slab just below the last blaze, we went left a little but couldn't find any semblance of a trail. We reached a flat open slab, which had excellent views. We seemed to be right where the cave should have been, according to our Alltrails and GPSs and the map. However, we couldn't find the grotto cave or any other signs of a trail, so after a bit more poking around, we went back up.
Mowglis between there and Firescrew has some twists and turns, so follow markings carefully. Descending from Firescrew, Mowglis has some wet slabs that need to be taken carefully. The descent just above Crag Shelter is fairly steep, but most of the rest is pretty gradual. Crag Shelter was a nice spot to eat lunch. The trail was straightforward from there to the junction with Hanging Rocks Spur, which has a cairn and a small sign at the junction.
Hanging Rocks Spur (or rather, the loop part of it) was an adventure. The split was pretty clear, where the main spur continued straight and the lesser-used loop part bears left. The loop part goes across a very steep sidehill, with the cliff on the right and a very steep slope on the left. It goes over boulders where care is needed, and has holes between the rocks to avoid. At one point, it descends steeply for a short distance, and then turns right and climbs up a steep, wet ledge with no handholds or footholds. This is the toughest part of the loop, since there's a sharp dropoff immediately to your left and no way to go around to the right. You have to get in a position to get a knee on top of the ledge, and then use a root as a handhold. Shorter hikers like me will find this quite difficult. Just after that is a very steep pitch up loose dirt and pine needles - this has to be done carefully, and there are a few roots and small trees to use as handholds (but test them first to make sure they will hold you). Just after that, the trail goes along this narrow ledge just below the top of the cliff - people who are afraid of heights might have issues here. The final pitch to the top of the cliff is easier. Definitely do it in this direction - it would be even tougher in the opposite direction.
From that junction, Mowglis Trail was pretty easy down to the old Groton-Orange road, where it continues to the right along the road and Orange Cove Trail (unsigned) goes left. We did see a car parked at the junction, though we don't know which side of the road it came up. The road portion of Mowglis Trail is rough and rocky, with several deeply rutted areas, some washouts, and a lot of drainage ditches. I don't recommend attempting to drive this unless your car has a lot of ground clearance and you have experience driving very rough dirt roads. We saw evidence that a previous car attempting to drive this road had bottomed out and scraped its exhaust pipe in several places. Hiking the road is pretty quick anyway.
This was a very enjoyable day - the weather and foliage were pretty much ideal. We saw more hikers than we expected on the footpath portion of Mowglis, but no one else on either spur or on the road portion of Mowglis.
Parking
Room for a couple of cars at the bottom of Mowglis Trail. It might be possible to park one or two cars along Sculptured Rocks Road as well. We snagged the last parking spot at the West Ridge trailhead - it was quite crowded. The road to it is steep, and bumpy in a few places, but any vehicle could make it with careful driving.