Last year (I think), Eagle Eye Don and noticed a clear horizontal line going across a rock field from the 1933 lookout photo from Frazier Mountain. That started this quest to see if we could find remnants of the elusive 511 South Fork Roaring River trail. Here is a closeup of the image that started the quest:
With that info, and info from previous explorations, we were able to find the first part of the 511 (South Fork Roaring River) trail. I think the reason it has been hard to find is that all the maps have it in the wrong place. The maps that I've seen all show it right next to the river - the trail is actually about half way up the hill at the beginning, and kinds of works its way down to the river as it heads down the canyon.
It was a VERY rainy, foggy day yesterday when Kirk, Zack and I set out from the Shellrock trailhead to try and find any remnants of this trail. Once up at Frazier Turnaround, I made them go up to Frazier Fork so I could see the old outhouses for myself (I hadn't ever noticed them before). Once that was complete, we headed cross country over to the Serene Lake trail to where we had been told the 511 took off from. It took us a while to find it, but we (Kirk) finally found a blaze and we headed down the trail. The tread is faint and VERY brushy at that point, with LOTS of huckleberry. We headed above Lower Rock Lake and kept finding blazes and what appeared to be faint tread.
What the trail looked like above Lower Rock Lake:
The first really interesting thing we got to was a HUGE Blaze on a tree - never seen one this big:
And right next to this tree was a nice spring - we nicknamed this spring "Big Blaze Spring":
We continued down the trail and shortly we arrived at the first rock field - we were most definitely on the trail!:
And then on the other side of the rock field, the tread through the trees - other than the downed logs it was in pretty good shape:
And what little view we got - on a clear day this would be great:
Here is a good shot of one of the (few) clear sections in a rockslide:
Most of them looked like this - a tangled mess of vine maple:
We got as far as we could, but figured we should turn around - it was about 4:00 and we still needed to hike back out - we were soaking wet and pretty tired from going over/around all the downed logs and vine maple and the rain wasn't letting up, so we headed back out. The good news is that the trail didn't show any signs of disappearing. Future explorations will hopefully find out how far it does go.
Unfortunately, I didn't get a good track of our day - I got a partial track but my GPS ran out of battery and I didn't get the whole thing. Here is the part of our track I did get - I marked our estimated end point - we got about 2 miles from Frazier Turnaround:
Truly an epic day if there ever was one - bad weather, a long hike and a great discovery!
Rob et.al., A most excellent outing, I admit to being skeptical about the trail being so high, I was wrong. Great find!
Thx,
--Paul
It definitely was a most excellent outing! A very WET outing, but excellent.
I think (but we will find out later) that the trail slowly makes its way down to the river - at least that is how the path appears to be headed. What would be even more amazing is if this trail were accessible all the way to the roaring river. According to the old maps (which were wrong on its initial location), it is supposed to meet up with Corral Springs across the river. Wouldn't that be cool if you could take this down and then go across to Corral Springs on the other side?
OK, so I'm a dreamer... But this trail definitely deserves more exploration.
One cool tidbit - Zack reminded me that the book by F. Alton Everest - "Tales of the High Clackamas Country" had a chapter talking about building this trail. Midway down the trail, they established a camp - I think we almost got to the midway point of the trail. It would be interesting to see if there is any evidence of a camp along the trail. That would have been over 85 years ago, but it would be interesting to see if anything was evident.
Rob Williams said
It definitely was a most excellent outing! A very WET outing, but excellent.I think (but we will find out later) that the trail slowly makes its way down to the river - at least that is how the path appears to be headed. What would be even more amazing is if this trail were accessible all the way to the roaring river. According to the old maps (which were wrong on its initial location), it is supposed to meet up with Corral Springs across the river. Wouldn't that be cool if you could take this down and then go across to Corral Springs on the other side?
OK, so I'm a dreamer... But this trail definitely deserves more exploration.
That would be a nice trail to have available for a loop with Grouse Point. I'm really curious about the Corral Springs connection. If there's room, invite me along next time now that I'm a believer.
--Paul
If the weather is nice, it would be a BEAUTIFUL trail - the views from the rockslides would be tremendous - not peak views, but great views of the South Fork Drainage. The route through the timber is nice as well - a lot more big trees than I thought there would be.
Next time we will make the horrible trek down the Frazier road to cut 3-4 miles off the trip. I read your trip report from several years ago, and you said the same thing. We could have used the additional time to explore the trail further. But we found enough to make it worth going back for. I will let you know when we plan on another trip. I'm hoping we can do another one this year.