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  • Clackamas River Trail

    I finally forced myself to get back out in the woods last week.  It has been probably 3 or 4 months, but with the beautiful weather I took a day off work and decided to see how bad the Clackamas River Trail was.  I started from Indian Henry, and went to Pup Creek Falls and back.  A little breezy and cool at times, but it was a very nice day.

    Donovan and company, you have been BUSY!  THANK YOU FOR YOUR HARD WORK!  The trail was in pretty good shape, with almost all of the downed trees cleared, except for a couple of REALLY big ones.  There were a LOT of trees cut off the trail.  I didn't count, but I'm sure it was more than 50 of them.  One of the really big ones had a foothold cut into to make crossing it easier, the others could either be gone around or under (if you squish yourself).  All in all, the trail is in pretty good shape.  I had forgotten how much beautiful old growth is on that trail.  It has probably been 3 or 4 years since I did the east end of the trail.

    The other really nice thing was that someone (I'm assuming Donovan) made a very nice new bench seat next to Pup Creek Falls:  picture of new bench  

    The bench is very comfortable, and makes a great place to eat lunch and watch the falls!
    Clackamas River Trail
  • Re: Clackamas River Trail (#)
  • 3/18/09; 5:39:04 PM ¦ by Donovan
  • Charles and Eric made the bench. We have wanted one there for years. This year the perfect tree tumbled over nearby. It was the right time.

    Thank you for the feedback. Hopefully, the FS will get the large trees taken care of. It was a unusually rough year along the river.

    It is kinda nice after a few years how a trail can be a fresh new experience.

    • Re: Clackamas River Trail (#)
    • 3/22/09; 7:58:07 AM ¦ by Robert Koscik
    • That trail is nothing but trouble..built in very steep crumbly terrain.  Thanks you guys for taking care of it for the General Public With Hiking Poles and Dogs and Lots of Gortex.  Me, I'm hiding behind a stump gigglin', moss-in-beard.
  • Re: Clackamas River Trail (#)
  • 3/23/09; 9:25:01 PM ¦ by Donald Presley
  • I wasn't aware of it until this weekend, but the Clackamas River Trail, or segments of it, are included in the proposed wilderness bill. I believe they call it the Clackamas Canyon Wilderness, and portions of the trail from Indian Henry to almost Cat Creek will be within the wilderness boundary, as far as I can discern from the maps.

    I had went to the district office last week to ask if they had a map of the the proposed wilderness areas in the district, but they said that they didn't and that I should look at Senator Ron Wyden's website to see what he has posted there. So here is the link for anybody who wants to have a look:

    http://wyden.senate.gov/issues/Mt.%20Hood/Maps.cfm

    Don
    • Re: Clackamas River Trail (#)
    • 3/24/09; 5:54:37 PM ¦ by Donovan
    • Well that was real sleazy. Never saw that part of the grab. That sucks.

      The Wyden-nauer staffers and their enviro pals, a mouse, an aerial photo, circle any stand with few roads, and close it off to hikers and everybody else.

      If this goes through in this form, that will be the last of my efforts on CRT. It will be great to lose the CRT because it will quickly show the public the direct consequence of wilderness designation and trail loss. And I, for one, will not lift a finger to fix the trail.
      • Re: Clackamas River Trail (#)
      • 3/25/09; 10:36:48 AM ¦ by Pete Giordano
      • Looks like it went through with the CRT included; at least the upstream portion. There are lots of good maps of all the areas on the Oregon Wild site here:

        http://www.oregonwild.org/wilderness/mount_hood_wilderness_campaign/lewis-and-clark-mount-hood-wilderness-maps

        I agree there are some strange inclusions in the whole thing. I'd guess they tried to include anything that had significant old-growth or potential. So much of this seems to be more to protect against agressive timber management than intact wilderness. It is a bummer in some cases, good in others.

        It looks to me that FS 4611 down to the trailhead for one of the Roaring River trails is exempted on one of the maps? I don't know if that's just how it's drawn or what. Anyone else see that?

        Anyone know when this actually is implemented on the ground?

        pete
        • Re: Clackamas River Trail (#)
        • 3/25/09; 5:32:52 PM ¦ by Donovan
        • It is hard to get the details. The FS says talk to Wyden/Blumenauer staffers, who refer to the rather rough maps, which are changing. Plus, they don't know the country - at all, so they are no help.

          Fortunately, they missed a lot of great country. There are several interesting possibilities for replacement trails. On my list would be the old Pup Creek Trail, the Collawash River Trail, Tumble Creek, Jim Meadow-Rho Meadow, Old Skyline Trail, old 701 Trail, old 503 Trail, Tarzan Springs, etc.

          I suspect the Roaring River trails will be dropped over time with the exception of the 3/4 mile into Upper Rock Lake and one access to Cache Meadows (we have/had four).

          The days of "aggressive timber management" in the District were already long gone so there will be no net change there, except that access will be denied to many citizens.
          • Re: Clackamas River Trail (#)
          • 3/25/09; 6:12:37 PM ¦ by Pete Giordano
          • Donovan,

            I wasn't suggesting that the days of "aggressive timber management" are still here. Just that there is a perception among some wilderness advocate groups that any timber management is "aggressive". I think we are in agreement that some of these new boundaries are arbitrary and hard to really ground-truth. It will be interesting to see how it shakes out on the ground with implementation.

            I'm curious where the Collawash River Trail is.

            pete