Milepost 3 Trail

I woke up this morning, the weather was cloudy, and the forecast was for probable rain.  Since I wimped out last weekend, I decided that I was going hiking no matter what.  Then I was half way to Estacada, and it dawned on me that I forgot my rain gear!  That didn't deter me, however....I decided I would make do with what I had and was determined to hike today.  Anyway, I found the trailhead for the infamous "Milepost 3 Trail" after a bunch of looking.  I was a little farther up the road that I should have been. Everywhere I looked, the hill went almost straight up!  Anyway, after a bit of searching, I finally found the trail.  WHAT A BEAUTIFUL TRAIL!  I wonder why it got abandoned?  It is a bit steep in places, but it has a lot of beautiful points on it.  What looks to be genuine first growth old growth, some wonderful views from the talus slopes, and a very calming feel to it.

There are a couple of pretty rough spots in the trail, but overall it was easy to hike.  Most of the tread is easy to spot, however there is a lower section where it gets a little sketchy, and an upper section that is pretty nasty due to downed trees/branches and a bunch of overgrowth.  I hadn't planned on spending a lot of time tending trail, so I just brought my clippers and no gloves, and I clipped until I got blisters on the way up.  On the way down, I tried to throw branches off the trail.  It could still use a lot of TLC, but the hike is most definitely worth it, and pretty easy to follow as long as you pay attention to where you are going.

Since I didn't see flagging or a rock cairn at the trailhead, I stacked several rocks at the trailhead hopefully to make it a little more apparent for people to find.  My GPS differed from the posted coordinates by a little bit.  I was up the road a few hundred feet too far.  It is just before the 3 mile point on 4635, probably no more than a tenth of a mile.  My GPS recorded about 5.1 miles roundtrip, but it also recorded a bunch of searching in the beginning, so I think it would have recorded 2.4 miles up to the intersection of Rimrock.  I couldn't find Rimrock due to the snow, (it was a couple feet deep on the top of the hill).

Anyway, a very enjoyable day up in the hills.....FYI, I drove up road 45 to see how high I could get before snow, and it started quickly, and was about 3500' when it was too deep to drive through.   It is melting!

Rob