[Select image to enlarge].

A remarkable road once connected Spafford Forest to Spafford Valley, descending six hundred feet from the summit of Otisco Valley's west wall. The purpose of the difficult route is unclear, as it served no buildings except the house of J. Nodine near modern Craig Road at the top, before declining down the steep slope. This was on old road, appearing with the Nodine house on the 1850 map. The 1860 map (left, above) shows both house and road (top, center). By 1897, the road had disappeared (center, above). Its approximate route is shonw in yellow on the modern map of Spafford Forest, (above, right).

Surprisingly, the trace of this road, abandoned more than a century ago, still is apparent when the steep valley wall is viewed from the heights of Vesper, across Otisco Valley:

 

[Select image to enlarge].

The more prominent diagonal gash is the route of the gas line shown as a dotted line on the modern map (right, above). The old road intersects with this near the top, declining less precipitously to the north (right).

Perhaps this route served as an alternative the the passage up the Bucktail (shown in the top left of maps, above) which climbed the same height but over a shorter, more winding course. The Bucktail will be the subject of another Lost Roads article.