We originally planned to hike the Dry Creek trail and continue on the Big Hollow trail to Observation Peak but had to alter our plans a little.

Neither of us had ever hiked these routes so this was a new adventure. It was a bit over-the-top, too, since it was about 16 miles out-and-back with about 3,400’ EG. It was a very nice day, though, Monday the 20th with comfortable temperatures in the middle to high 50’s.

This trail got a complete log-out in May and except for a very short distance near the north end, is unburnt. The excellent trail condition and easy grade make this a good choice for a family outing.

The Dry Creek trail, # 194, is a mostly flat route that goes four miles along the west side of Dry Creek. It starts a few feet north of the start of the Trapper Creek trail, # 192. It ends at the junction with the Big Hollow trail, # 158. Most of it is built atop an old steam-era logging RR grade, so with one exception where it must climb over a small rocky ridge, is very evenly graded. It has a total rise of about 300′ from start to end so one hardly notices the elevation change. Adding that extra small rise over the ridge and the total EG is only about 450′.

The area was hit with a major windstorm in Sept. of 2020 and many trees were blown down over the route, but all have been sawn out when we hiked it. The northernmost part of the trail has a short area of burned forest from the 2020 Big Hollow fire but by far, most of the route travels through a forest of at least a hundred years old with a few older trees.

This was the worst of the blockages that the clean-up crews had to tackle.

A typical view of the route.

June was a great time to do this trail with all the fresh spring foliage.

You can see the cut where the RR went through a small ridge:

When we got near the junction with the Big Hollow trail we were met with a surprise: No bridge over Bourbon Creek! Well, to be perfectly correct, there was bridge, but not a very well built one:

Kel made a tentative venture out onto it and thought that she could do it but decided she might have trouble on the way back after tiring out from another 8 miles up and back from Observation Peak. She sat down on a log and made a great frowny face. She graciously said: “Go ahead and do Observation, Don, I have a book in the car”. I decided it would be best to go to plan B: Check out the rest of the Dry Creek Trail to the junction with the Big Hollow Trail and see if we could do the rest of the hike from the Big Hollow TH off of road 30.

I could see by the condition of the trail on the other side of the creek that few had crossed the log jam:

I continued past the junction with the Big Hollow trail and found that to access it from the other side one must cross another stream and on a not-so-sturdy bridge. This thwarted “Plan B”.

We decided to call it a day and come back later with some tools to fix this crossing. See report: Big Hollow Trail to Observation Peak. (coming soon)

This hike ended up as 8.7 miles out-and-back with 450′ EG. It would have been about 7.8 but we did a little off-trail exploring. Hike # 64.

This was my second attempt to reach Mt. Venus in less than a week. I had recuperated only four days before going back and beating myself up again to reach this not-so-noteworthy bump in the Mt. St. Helens blast zone. I paid a price for that indiscretion, making this more like a death march than a nice outing in the woods, at least on the way back when I had to hurry to beat the setting sun. I had a light, of course, but hiking in darkness on a rocky trail when you are very tired isn’t a good idea. My first attempt was from the Norway Pass trail head (TH) on the east side of the area. This time, I tackled it from the west, at the Coldwater Lake TH. Both routes are similar elevation gain (EG) and similar mileages. One advantage of coming in from the west is it’s about two hours less driving time out and back to the TH.

Mt. Venus is the last of the named peaks I hadn’t climbed in the area plus this would have been my 218th peak of 300′ or more prominence in Skamania County. It has 640′ of prominence and rises to 5820′ elevation, just 63′ lower than the highest peaks of the area, Mt. Whittier.

I got a good early start, hitting the trail at 8:11 under clear skies and a temperature of 50 degrees. A nice change from the never-ending heat we’ve been dealing with on this endless summer.

A view of Coldwater Lake at the start of the Lakes Trail: On the horizon in the center is Minnie Peak.

The first 4.1 miles of the trail skirts the north shore of this 42-year-old lake, formed when a debris dam from the 1980 eruption blocked Coldwater Creek. The trail appears level on maps but has seemingly interminable little ups-and-downs for that four miles. Not a lot for any one of the rises, but they add up. About a quarter mile past the lake, the trail starts a relentless, but very scenic grade for another 3.6 miles to Snow Lake.

I stopped for a couple of minutes at one of the waterfalls on Coldwater Cr. to admire this impressive basalt ridge. The ridge doesn’t seem to have a name but the flat-topped bump to its left is called Blastzone Butte.

Here’s the view looking the other way (to the east). The rocky ridge left of center is Mt. Whittier and the dark saddle-shaped peak right of center is commonly known as Mt. Teragram (Margaret backwards, since it is the same height plus or minus a few inches) or alternately as Mt. Tomroy after one of my now departed hiking friends.

Farther up the canyon there are a few places where persistent rock slides have made the trail a bit difficult to navigate. Piece of cake!

Farther up the trail, views of the ridge separating this valley from Spirit Lake and Mt. St. Helens come into view. Another trail runs along that ridge, just a few feet to a few hundred feet over to the south side. That’s Coldwater Peak in the center and a better view of Blastzone Butte on the far right.

Here’s a view the other way, looking up the canyon:

I saw no huckleberries until I was less than a half mile from Snow Lake and as I rounded a corner on the trail, voila, there they were. Fat, delicious and conspiring to slow me down and keep me from my goal. I did my best to ignore them – didn’t work!

Snow Lake, 8 miles from the start. Coincidently, eight years ago I passed by here on the way to Minnie Peak and took a photo from the exact same spot. See the next photo after this one.

Oct. 1, 2022

Sept. 10, 2014: Note how much the foliage has grown in those eight years and how many of the burned snags have fallen from time and windstorms.

There’s a nice camping area on the other side of the lake:

At this point, I needed to go off-trail to get to my goal. Eight years ago, I found a halfway decent game trail on the way to Minnie Peak and followed it for miles. I could only use it for about a quarter mile this time as it didn’t go in the right direction after that. Since that Minnie Peak trip, I’ve found that it started out as a maintained trail but was abandoned and never re-built after the 1980 eruption. I thought it looked too good for a game trail! The trouble is, it’s covered in deep sand from the eruption and talented as they are, the elk do not clear logs from their trails. Still, it was better that an out-and-out bushwhack. The photo below is of the best section I noted.

Another old trail, now game trail, view:

I could now see that there was no way I could get this job done and get back before complete darkness. I went ahead far enough to at least see my goal: Mt. Venus is the left -hand bump of the two on the horizon.

Too many logs to climb over and too much sand to wallow through! Only about 2 1/2 miles to go, up and back and another 1,300′ EG. Time to admit defeat and turn around.

A few more views on the way back:

Below: the final rays of the setting sun on Minnie Peak, in the distance.

It’s amazing how much the forest has recovered in the years since the 1980 eruption. This terrain looked like the surface of the moon for years, except for the downed trees.

 

Hike # 95 for 2022, 17.0 miles, 4,062′ EG

 

 

 

This report describes two trips to Bare Mountain. One with Kelly and the other with my friend Jamie, three months later.

This interesting peak and its adjacent crater appears to be geologically fairly recent. The USGS says it’s about 8,000 years old and the crater was formed when lava came in contact with ground water, forming a “phreatic explosion crater”.

Bare Mountain is very easy to reach, being just 23 miles north of Hwy 14 with all but about 8 miles of the trip on paved roads.

The rocky high point on the north side of the crater rim stands at 4360′ elevation, contrasting with the bottom of the crater at about 3820′ elevation.

On my first trip to the peak, I had no idea what the best route would be. I chose what looked to be the shortest way: a bushwhack, coming in from the west side. This proved more difficult than anticipated, but the foliage provided good handholds. The final 150 feet or so was daunting, but we were committed by then and didn’t want to go all the way back down to try yet another unknown route.

Here’s Kelly, emerging onto the crater rim from the near vertical jungle we’d come through: Still smiling!

We still had a way to go, and it looked to be challenging, to say the least. There wasn’t much of a game trail – perhaps the elk and deer are smart enough not to go places like this.

Here’s Kel, wondering “what am I doing here?!”

There was one fun traverse, but we made it around just fine.

Here’s a close-up of the crater floor, 540 feet below:

We safely made it to the summit and decided to continue heading to the east and found some easy game trails. Reaching the road, we hiked back to the car, glad we survived!

On my next trip to Bare Mountain, three months later, I invited my friend Jamie. There’s a handy gravel road around the south side of the peak so we parked as close as we could get to the low point on the crater rim.

Bare Mountain really is bare on the south side!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We climbed up to the rim and descended a mostly mossy route to the crater floor:

On the way down, we found and used a good game trail: Also, we had a good view of the summit ridge and high point Kel and I climbed a few months earlier.

Approaching the crater floor:

 

We wandered around, taking in the sights:

On the way out, nice game trail!

This was a fun, albeit short adventure and then we were off to Twin Rocks for some more fun.

 

 

 

 

White Pass area and Angry Mountain hike.

2020 was a much slower year than most any in my long history of adventures, and you already guessed why. We made the best of it though and visited many new places and had loads of fun doing it. On my birthday, Kel and I went to Packwood and explored the area. Here’s Kel hiking the metal covers over a small stream at the White Pass ski area. Why? – because they were there, of course!

This next photo is on the ridge west of Angry Mountain located off forest road 21 about 10 miles from Packwood. It’s a half-mile off-trail trek to get to this interesting high point.I’vee seen lots of piles of columnar basalt but never situated atop a ridge like this.

Once on the summit ridge, here is a view of the western edge of the Goat Rocks:

The photo at the right is of one of the meadows to the north of the hiking trail.

This rock pillar is right along the trail. Below: Kelly navigating one of the many logs fallen over the trail. There were 39 of them, all told, but this is one of the bigger ones.

Angry Mountain hike: 13.5 miles, 4,560 EG, hike # 72 for 2020.

2019 was a good year in spite of spraining an ankle in early May. As is usual for me, I didn’t take enough time off to let it heal properly and eventually had to slow way down for the rest of the year. As a result, my mileage was way down from last year but still I logged 731 miles and 220,375 vertical feet for 2019. (As opposed to 1,263 miles and 337,260 vertical for 2018.)

I’m only counting hikes in the woods for the above, but did a lot of other wandering about. My Fitbit logged 1,908 miles for the year and 276,360 vertical feet. (A Costco visit can tally up a mile or more if one wanders the entire store so misc. shopping, housekeeping and garden work is where most of the extra mileage comes in.) Since I live in a three story house, it’s easy for me to get 100 and sometimes even 200 feet EG in a day by doing housework. Here’s what Fitbit said: The bar graph indicates average steps per day for each week of the year. Calorie count indicates calories burned while not at rest or asleep. Fitbit counts a “floor” as 10 feet elevation gain (EG).

Taking it fairly easy for the summer and fall, at least as far as distance goes, I managed to do 32 days of trail work sawing out about 400 trees across five different trail systems. (I’m counting only trees about 4” in diameter or more.) – Some were over two feet though. Most of those hikes were short due to carrying gear so that’s another reason my mileage was down.
I hiked/climbed 42 peaks but only 11 new-to-me. Those 11 included some really fun outings such as Black Mt., Pechuck Lookout, Triangle Peak and a side trip to Boca Cave, Goosenest (in Northern CA) and Iron/Cone/Echo and North Peak. These last all located a little north of Hwy 20 and west of Santiam Pass.

All told, I was out hiking for 135 days, 61 days solo and 74 days with companions.

A few pictures of 2019 highlights:

January: Cook Hill: Jan. 19th

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cook Hill with Paul, Jan. 25th

February: Oregon coast in the snow (!), Ecola state park, Feb. 4th:

Cascade Locks in a snowstorm – with Kelly, Feb. 12th

Hamilton Mt. with Kelly, Feb. 25

 

Nick Eaton ridge with Paul, March 1st.

St. Patrick’s Day snowshoe on Mt. Hood – with a snow monster I made:

Back to Nick Eaton Ridge via Sentinel Ridge – with Ben and Elizabeth, March 21st:

April: Sentinel Ridge again, Grass Widows, April 12th:

Having some fun bouldering off Herman Creek with Kelly, April 14th:

The black car hits a milestone, April 14th

Paul and I do some trail work on Prindle, April 24th:

Kelly and I check out the north side of Prindle Mt., May 12th

We found this very interesting old bus, abandoned in the woods:

On May 30, Susan and I checked out the new trails on lower Archer Creek:

Silver Star, north ridge, June 3rd:

Kel on Ed’s Trail, Silver Star Mt., June 3rd.

Crater Lake, July 8th

Kelly finds a cool old farmhouse to explore on the way back from our eastern Oregon hike:

August: Black Mt. Aug. 3rd with Nat and Ben:

 

Aug. 10: Suz gets rocks for her garden from a quarry near Santiam pass.

Aug. 19th, Kel and I do some trail clearing on Augspurger Mt.

Aug. 26th, Triangle Peak:

We also checked out Boca Cave near Triangle Peak: This thing is huge! Check out the next photo.

Here’s a photo of the inside of the cave:

Tipsoo Peak on my birthday, Sept. 7th. The little point in the center is Howlock Mt. and the big one on the right is Mt. Thielsen.

Our first snow hike of the year: September 30th (!) to Lake Wapiki, Indian heaven:

October: The new stove is in and doing its job!

Kel on Cook Hill, October 27th:

November: The old SUV get retired and a new one takes its place – November 6th:

The Black Car goes for its last adventure – Detroit lake on Nov. 22nd:

Exploring Detroit Lake: It’s lowest level in the 67 years since it was first filled: November 22nd:

 

We explore a few more peaks near Detroit:

Kel hiking up Timber Butte:

The venerable Black Car does its final heavy lifting: A few more rocks for Susan’s rock garden:

 

Mt. Jefferson from Timber Butte, Nov. 22nd:

December: One last trip to Detroit Lake on the 8th and 9th. Mt. Jefferson from Stahlman Point:

Summit of Stahlman point:

One final look at the newly revealed objets ‘d art at Detroit reservoir:

The final hike of the year – a trip on December 30th to the Multnomah Basin to see if the ’31 Buick survived the 2017 fires – it did!

There’s a long story connected to this car: It was likely driven to this location sometime in the forties and used as a power source for a portable sawmill. Buicks of this era had straight eight engines with lots of torque. Over the years parts were slowly removed and the car was lost in the foliage and only a few people from the Trails Club knew of its existence. It’s far enough from any old road or trail that its location passed from memory.

In 2005 I was hiking farther up on Larch Mountain and ran into a guy exploring an old steam-era RR grade and we started talking about things we’ve found in the woods. He asked me if I knew about or had found any of the old cars in the Multnomah Basin. I, of course, was interested and he told me a story about trying to take an old car’s engine out and taking it to Benson High where he was enrolled in an automotive class. This was in 1971 or ’72 and he said he had successfully taken the engine out, requisitioned a firewood cart from the Trails Club’s Nesika Lodge (about 1 mile away) and tried to haul it down to where he could get a car to it. He ran out of daylight and was going to come back later but couldn’t find the cart and engine again. Hearing this, I thought it would be fun challenge to find the car, and if I was lucky, maybe the cart and engine too.

With modern GPS technology, one can do a grid search of an area and know just where you’ve been before, so you don’t re-do an area and also don’t miss an area. I did just that and after few hours of exploring, found the car. Using details found on the car’s remains I was able to, with certainty, determine that it was a 1931 Buick model 47 four-door sedan. I took another trip to find the engine and find it I did only 400 feet away. No wonder the man I talked to couldn’t find it: he’d gone in the wrong direction from the old road and was looking in the wrong area.

 

 

 

 

I intend to go back and tackle some more of this mid next week as the weather is forecast to improve. Volunteers are welcome! Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday look to be the best weather at present.

This winter has been a weather challenge for hiking on the west side of the gorge so I’ve been heading east to avoid the rain. Snow, ice, cold – bring it on – but rain – not so much!
I hiked Wygant Peak back in March of 2015 and noticed a trail branching off to the east at about the 950′ level and hiked a few hundred feet. I marveled at the effort made to carve this route out of the solid rock cliffs and wondered where it went. Fast forward five years and here I am, back in the same place but this time I knew what this was: An abandoned trail called the Chetwoot Loop. What I had read indicated it was covered in fallen trees, hard-to-impossible to follow and much of the tread had slid down the steep slopes. A perfect challenge! I hiked in on Feb. 3rd to assess what it would take to resurrect this mile and a half scenic delight. Better prepared, I went back on the 7th armed with my saws, wedges, and determination to do what I could.

A couple of views of “good” sections of trail on the west side:

It turned out that the trail, heading south from the junction with the Wygant trail to the long-washed-out bridge over Perham Creek was in good shape – mostly. A couple of spots with missing tread were easily navigated and the trail was easy to follow. I sawed out about twenty trees and notched a foothold in the one too big for me to handle safely. Arriving at the creek, I cut 4 or 5 logs out of a handy cedar and placed them in the creek for a makeshift bridge. I called it a day, eager to get back and continue. Looking across the creek I could see that the west section of trail was going to be another problem altogether, with very large trees down and a steeper sidehill to deal with.

 

A few before and after views of the west side trail:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This last before and after is a view of a tree taken out on the main Wygant part of the trail:

On the 13th, I was back and this time I tackled the problem from the west side junction with the Wygant trail. On my recon a few days prior I counted 27 trees down in the first 750′ of trail so I knew I wasn’t going to get very far before both my saw’s and my own batteries ran out. After cutting out those 27 trees, I explored most of the rest of the route finding dozens of huge trees down, especially in the final 800′ of the trail before the creek crossing. Trees way too big for my skill set not to mention too big for my puny little battery powered saw! I took a few pictures, made a few notes and headed back. I cut out three more trees off the Wygant trail on the way back and on the final cut, my saw’s battery was done and so was I for this most productive day.

This was the only one too big for me to tackle on the east side of the loop – It’s easy to get over now

 

A workable bridge across Perham Creek:

 

Typical views on that last few hundred feet of the route:

The updated  map: I was back again on the 18th and nearly finished the job. Red with dashed white is the Wygant Trail, blue is cleared Chetwoot loop, dashed yellow over blue is cleared but a few trees and some brush yet to be removed.

My hike on the 7th: 3 hours, 5 minutes, 4.4 miles, 800′ EG

On the 13th: 4 hours, 45 minutes, only 5.0 miles and 1300′ EG, (but it should count for triple that!)

On the 18th: 4 hours, 35 minutes, 4.5 miles, 1500 EG. (This one should count for quadruple that!!)

I love my little battery powered Stihl saw. On the 18th, I took two batteries and a new chain and got nearly more done than the first two trips together.

dn