Don,

I was up there the week before last, doing the same hike over to Skookum Lake as well as up Thunder Mtn.  The road into Lost Creek Meadow is in good shape.  Some washboarding in places and a few potholes here and there, but you shouldn't have any problem in a car.

What I want to know is where are the meadows at Lost Creek Meadows?  All I saw were trees.

Doug

The route up is quite Subarooable. No need for the 4WD. Back when I owned a series of Subarus I drove up there many times.

Like Doug Firman I never thought the meadows existed as all you can see are trees. Lost Creek Meadows is not far from the trailhead to the other direction across the road. Once you get past the conifer seedling thicket near the road you can see treeless areas just ahead. I haven't found any blazes but it would have attracted packteams for horse / mule grazing. There are alternating areas open and brushy so use your best routefinding skills. I have yet to take time to throughly explore and find them but the maps show ponds.

The recently uploaded UndatedTrailLogs.pdf calls the trail to Skookum / Thunder the East Mountain Trail. It starts the log where it forks off the South Fork / Boundary Trail. This is less than half a mile from the current trailhead. There is a section more than a mile long between old roads 350 and 370 that is your shortest route if you know where its hiding. I'd like to find the sections past Skookum Lake - They hook up with Fish Creek Trail.

irishharmon said
 Paul and I looked at that route you are proposing we looked at it from the bottom. As far as we could tell the terrain is very steep in there especially at the head water area of Fish Creek. There is also a huge amount of Devils club and the area is thick with rhododendron which is worse then alder for bushwhacking through. One route we are thinking may work better is to either head straight over Batty butte and then down along the south side of Bracket Mtn to the old quarry and spur road that drops into Surprise lake. We followed it up from Surprise to Bracket Mtn and it was fairly easy going.

Yes it was fairly easy from the old rock quarry to the side of Bracket Mtn, but we never went to the top from that direction. As I recall the trail from the Lost Creek Meadow on the Molalla up to Bracket Mtn was kind of sketchy and hard to follow. And then from the top down about a 1/4 mile or so I never done so I can't speak to that.

Bryon Boyce said
Pulling more-or-less figures from Google Earth, the trailhead is at 44 59 15 / 122 12 33 and the jumpoff point at 44 59 48 / 122 11 43.

I'm Guessing that the first set of coordinates is the Lost Creek Meadow Trailhead, and looking at the second set this is the exact spot described to me by another Geocacher. He had said right about where Napping Penguin (name of a geocache) is would be a good spot. So You say there's a trail of sort there already?

And while we're on the subject of Surprise lake, has anyone out there been fishing at Surprise lately? This year when I was there, both in July and the end of August not even a nibble. the previous two years they were biting on anything and I could have trout for dinner two nights in a row. I'm just wondering if they could have died off that quickly or is there a hidden pocket that they hang out at. I know I didn't fish it out as I didn't eat that much fish. if they're gone will they come back on their own as I think they were stocked in the first place. And they weren't the little guys like at Skookum Lake, these were 10 to 12 inch rainbow trout. Just wondering.