PNW Roads

Mollala River

2012-02-19T20:00:00.000-08:00

Today I took a day trip up into the Mollola River Area. First I checked out the Table Rock road and drove up as far as the snow let me, which was about 2500 feet, give or take a couple hundred, depending on the amount of sun the exposure the particular road I was exploring got.

On the way back down I got an excellent view of Table Rock, which from the picture is easy figure out how it got it’s name.

Here are some views of the Mollala River Valley, taken from high above.

I even got a blobsquatch picture. As I as driving along the river, I spotted a dark form, which I thought might be a dark figure standing at the water’s edge. It was quite far away, so I got the camera zoomed in and snapped a few pictures, but I still couldn’t tell exactly what it was. I stayed there for about 10 minutes, snapping pictures every 30 seconds or so. I finally figured it was a rock or stump of some sort, as it never moved.

I did see a small herd of 4-5 big dark brown deer at about 2000 feet while I was driving down Middlefork Road. These are the first deer I’ve seen this year. It was exciting to finally see some sign of life in the woods, for what has been a quiet year so far.

Upper Clackamas River

2012-02-12T20:00:00.000-08:00

Took a drive out to the upper Clackamas River area today to check out how high the snow was. I drove straight up the Clackamas River Road, past Austin Hot Springs and hit snow at road 4650, at about 2100 feet elevation. I took a walk up snow covered road 4651 about half a mile or so, just to check out the area. I saw no animal tracks at all, no deer, rabbit, coyote...nothing. I scouted the area a bit, and aside from a squirrel that chirped at my excursion into his territory, there was no sign of life in the area.

I drove back done the main road, checking out various side roads and I took my usual drive up Indian Henry road. It was a quiet day in the woods, there were few people out.

Back to Barney Reservoir

2012-01-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

Today I took a day trip out to Barney Reservoir area. I wanted to scout this area out some more, when I was out there after Thanksgiving I heard some sounds that sounded like large rocks banging together. It was very dark and rainy that night, so I was unable to find the source and the sounds stopped when I got close.

I found out a few things about this area.

1.    It’s more popular than I thought. There were a few people out driving around, cutting wood, target shooting, and fishing at the reservoir.

2.   The gates seem to be opened and closed at random. The “back” gate on the west side of the reservoir was open last time I was there, this road leads to the Trask River road and should lead all the way to the coast. However, this day that gate was closed.

3.   The south side of the ridgeline that you cross on the way into the reservoir abuts to BLM land. This area in fact is exactly where I heard the rock banging. I found a road that lead into the “rock banging” area. I scouted around and it was interesting; the trees haven’t been logged in a few decades and the area has that “spooky” feel. The dog even kept trotting back to the Jeep and getting in. Weird. I need to study up some more, the BLM land might be open to public use? Maybe a good area for future exploring.

The weather was interesting, foggy and grey below 1000 feet, but warm and sunny above 1000 feet. At one spot I was able to see the Three Sisters Mountains to the south and all the way north to Mt Rainier, a view of about 230 miles and no less than 8 mountains!

Here’s Mt Hood with the fog shrouded valley in front.

Barney Reservior

2011-11-27T19:00:00.000-08:00

I made a night trip out to Barney Reservoir last night. There have been couple stories about hunters being spooked out there and one guy even had the side of his rig smacked or slapped by an unseen creature of the forest.

I finally figured out how to get there. It took me a couple days trip to figure out what approach to take. The reservoir is surrounded by timber company land and they often gate the entrances into the land. I had to access it from Weyerhaeuser land via the town of Pike. The gate into that area has big warnings about the gate being locked at night, so I was paranoid about being locked in, but it was a warm night and I had a full tank of gas, so I figured at the worst I’d have to spend a night sleeping in the truck.

I made of through the maze of roads and got to the reservoir and it was mostly empty of water it seemed, but it was dark and difficult to make out much frankly.

On one hill above the reservoir I heard the sounds of large rocks being hit together. It was fairly loud and I drove around the area to try and find the source, but after a while the sounds stopped. I have no explanation as to what made the sounds.

The area is very interesting because unlike the National Forest to the east, this forest area seem to be used by locals only. I saw very few tire tracks once I got past the active logging area. And the back side of Weyerhaeuser’s property backs up to Tillamook State Forest, I’m pretty sure I found Weyerhaeuser’s back gate while I was out there, but it’s hard to know because good maps of the area are hard to find. The state forest is OK to camp on, the Weyerhaeuser land is not, it is posted forbidden to camp on their land.

Given the recent possible encounters out there and the quiet, dark, and secluded nature of the area, I think it’s prime area for future exploration and outings.

Tarzan Springs and Rod Creek Road

2011-11-06T20:00:00.000-08:00

Went for a drive out to the Glen Thomas site and Tarzan Springs area today. Very interesting area and very remote. I was surprised that there was snow starting at about 3800 feet. It was extremely slippery too, and despite being only 3-4 inches deep I stopped at about 4200 feet because it was getting too slick to go on safely being by myself. Thus, I couldn't get to the trail head to the actual Glen Thomas Site.

I was saddened to find that the road into the Tarzan Springs area was bermed too.

On the way back out of the Clackamas Valley, I stopped at Rod Creek Road behind Indian Henry. I was surprised to find the gate open, and also surprised to find a new gate at the head of Rod Creek Road. Fortunately it was open, so I took a drive in.

Synchronicity and the 500 pound Owl.

2011-10-09T20:00:00.000-07:00

I went camping at Bumping Lake, Washington, with several buddies. On the first night, as we were sitting by the fire, we heard a very LOUD owl sound off at around 8:30. The topic of conversation at that exact moment...owls.

Synchronicity man...synchronicity.

Fortunately I caught the call with my Zoom recorder.

Mt Mitchell and Roaring River Areas

2011-09-03T18:00:00.000-07:00

I got out for the day Saturday and checked out a lot of areas that where blocked by snow earlier this year. I explored the plateau between Roaring River and Mt Mitchell, the areas around rd 4635.

Then headed over to the east side of Mt Mitchell and explored the Hideaway Lake area.

Didn't see anything squatchy, but saw LOTS of forest fire smoke. There is one east of Sisters that was pumping out smoke. The Dollar Lake fire on the north side of Mt Hood turned the drive home down highway 26 into what seemed like a drive though hell...lots and lots of thick nasty smoke, I had taken all the Jeep's windows out and I could barely breath all the way down the mountain, I was literally breathing through my shirt to keep from gagging.

Lake Noises

2011-08-29T18:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday the wife and I went out to one of our favorite lakes where we've had several strange things happen in the past. We walked around the lake and hung out a while.

As we were leaving and walking back to the Jeep we heard three frighteningly loud bangs from the west side of the lake...sounded like a giant smashing two steel plates together, it was loud and freaked us out frankly...we hadn't seen any humans around the area so we were rather stumped as to what the cause was.

We drove around the west side of the lake, were there is a road that parallels the lake shore. We drove along slowly and stopped several times to look and listen, but found/heard nothing. Finally at the end of the road, about a mile from the lake, we found a guy with a truck and trailer running a bobcat loader, he was leveling out a site to park his camper for hunting season next month (!?!). This was something I didn’t expect to find in the middle of the woods. We stopped and talked with this guy a while, he’s an old timer and was an interesting character.

We figured the banging noise was him running the bobcat that we heard. Weird, since it was about a mile away, but I guess sound carries in the woods and across the hills. This shows how important follow up is, had we not thoroughly checked out every road around the lake, we would have forever thought the sound came from a much different source, LoL.

Skookum Meadows Area

2011-07-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

Drove up to Skookum Meadows area Saturday.

This year Skookum Meadows was the site of the latest Rainbow Gathering, Jul 1-7 2011. So I was surprised when I got up there to find many people sill there. Most of the folks still there are the clean up crew.

I stopped and talked with several folks and asked them if there were any Bigfoot encounters during the event. No one I talked with heard of any encounters. However one of the guys working on the clean up crew stated that during the planning stages of the event, the forest service representatives were quite serious in warning them that Sasquatches did exist in the area. He reiterated that they, the Forest Service people, were quite serious about this. While I have no way of verifying this, I found it very interesting.

I visited a few spots in the surrounding area that I've frequented before but find nothing of note in terms of evidence. I did find an unusually large tree break. This could be from snow load, but wow, I've never seen a tree this big broken from snow load. The foliage at the top of the tree is still green so this break is fresh (this year at least).

On the way back I stopped at the "dice" location that I visited two years ago. On my last visit, my nephew and I found tons of fresh bear scat, as well as bear and cougar tracks. Also we came upon a fresh urine puddle of unknown origin.

However this year while I found the “dice” area to be full of game sign, I found only deer and elk tracks, no bear or cougar. Honestly, I did find this area quite “spooky” though, I couldn’t shake the “something is watching me” feeling and I found myself constantly looking over my shoulder. This was the only area the whole day that I felt this way and I have no idea why. I wonder that if there are predators in an area maybe we somehow subconsciously pick up on that. Maybe humans can pick up predator’s marking scents, but it doesn’t register consciously.

All in all it was a good day. No evidence of the big guy was found, but I scouted out a lot of good locations for future outings and had a great day in the outdoors.

Here a video from the day.

Timothy Lake Area

2011-07-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

I took a week long family camping trip at Timothy Lake. I used this opportunity to check out a lot of areas near the Lake.

My first excursion was the road to Kinzel Lake. It’s long single road (no side roads or connecting roads) that is about 9 miles long and follows a ridgeline from Trillium Lake.

The road itself is very rough and seems to be little used. I was surprised to be stopped by deep snow at 4500 feet, only 4 miles in from Trillium. This area is interesting; it’s near the border to several wilderness areas and is certainly remote. I may return here later, when more snow has melted.

Later in the week I checked out a lot of roads to the south and west of Timothy Lake. Nothing of interest to report, I was basically scouting for possible campsites for future use.

I did make it to one of my favorite lakes north of Timothy and was surprised to find the water extremely high. In fact it was so high that the water was flooding the shoreline and went into the woods surrounding the lake. The road into the lake was muddy and I almost got my Jeep stuck in the mud, but fortunately powered out of the muck. The mosquitoes were beyond thick, they were murderous. I poked around the lake a bit but didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.

At the end of the week I made it up to Devil’s ridge. Here is the gravel pit near the bottom of Devil's Ridge

View west from the Devil's ridge area.

Olympic national forest

2011-06-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

I spent a few days up in the Olympic National Forest with the WASRT team checking out the middle and western areas of the forest. John and I found a massive pile of stool, but after some post expedition investigations and talking with hunters, the consensus is that it was from a bear.

Check out Mojo’s 1st of a three part video of the outing here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDLvZwvrgVw

Timothy Lake

2011-06-05T19:00:00.000-07:00

We had the warmest weekend so far this year so my oldest daughter and I loaded up the truck with a tent and the dogs and headed out for an impromptu camping overnighter at an isolated spot near Timothy Lake. Timothy Lake gets a lot of tourist traffic because it’s a beautiful location and has four large national forest campgrounds on it. However if one gets a mile or two away from the lake on a dirt road, it’s very quiet and undisturbed.

We set up camp and started a fire for the evening; we set up the recorder and did some wood knocks. We were met with silence. It was quiet in this spot, in fact it was the quietest spot I’d been to since camping up near Skookum Meadow a couple summers ago. It was 100% silent, no birds, no wind, no frogs, no human noise (aside from the occasional omnipresence of airplanes).

It wasn’t spooky quiet at all; just surprisingly quiet given that we were a couple miles from hundreds of campers. I left the recorder on all night and it picked up nothing, not even a bird chirp or insect buzz. This area has had some class B reports and I’ve been told some class A stuff too. Maybe we’ll have better luck next time.

But we had fun enjoying the sunshine and warm weather

Scouting Trip

2011-05-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

We went out checking some areas yesterday. First thing we headed up Toward the Barlow Road, however it was still covered in about two feet of snow. However since it’s right on the eastern slope of Mt Hood and at about 4000 feet I wasn’t surprised.

We then headed down highway 35 and scouted out potential camping sites for later in the summer. All the side roads were snow covered until we got down to Dufur Mill Road. We explored several side roads off Dufur Mills Roads, all of which were bare. We even drove up Lookout Mountain Road all the way up to 4800 feet. Since this area is further east of the mountain, it doesn’t get as much snow; thus we were able to get higher than on roads on the west side of the mountain. The weather was warm and sunny up in this area too, in contrast to the drive up on 26 which was rainy and foggy.

Next was the Timothy Lake area. Down at CJs store we stopped to get some coffee and noticed all the campgrounds were listed as closed on the readerboard, but when we got up to the lake all the campgrounds on the lake were open and about 50% full. However at 45 degrees and rainy, most of the folks were bundled up in heavy coats, it looked more like ice fishing than camping.

We tried to push on up into some of the smaller lakes above Timothy, near the Salmonberry Wilderness, but we were stopped by thick snow at 3500 feet.

Rod Creek Road closed and camping at the Collawash

2011-05-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

Went out for a few days of camping and squatching with my friend Robert. The plan was to check out the Rod Creek Road area that I visited three times last summer (1st time, 2nd time, 3rd time) where I found an interesting stick structure and recorded some odd knocking sounds.

However when we got up there the road's gate was locked.

So our plan B was to check out the basin east of Mt Mitchell area, but the snow was still too low to get in there, so our plan C was the Collowash area.

We found a remote location to camp. We set up bait stations and used various scent lures, but heard nothing the three days we were there, nor did we get anything on the camera traps. We hiked a few roads, around a lake, and some boggy spots lookng for tracks, but came up with nothing.

Jordan Creek

2011-04-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

I took a trip into the Jordan Creek area today. It was one of those glorious days full of sunshine after weeks of rain. It was an exploration trip with several side hikes to check for tracks in the mud or along the creeks. I didn't see much of anything in the way of evidence but it was a nice day in the outdoors.

Two Rivers

2011-03-09T13:46:00.000-08:00

I went out to Clackamas this last Sunday just to look around. I hadn't been out that way since last fall. Snow is real low, I couldn't get above 1500 feet where it was about 6 inches deep. Didn't see much, just snow and mud. But it was nice to get out for a while and breathe fresh air.

Parabolic Microphone

2011-02-18T21:00:00.000-08:00

Here's a video I put together of my first assembly of a parabolic microphone. It's not something I have need for very often, but when I wanted one in the past it would have been a great tool to have. I'll be playing around with it, modifying it as I test it out more.

I initially had it setup with a handle from a slingshot that enabled one to carry it with one hand, but that was noisy and the sound would transmit into the recordings. I still need to figure out a good one handed carring method.

Mud and Deer

2010-09-26T23:00:00.000-07:00

I took a trip up around Mt Hood today to just check things out. Lots of mud on the back roads since the rain has started back up. Also I was surprised at how many deer/elk tracks I saw along the sides of the roads, maybe they just show up more now that the banks are soft from the rains.

On the way back off the mountain I checked out the Salmon River, west of Highway 26. The Salmon River is one of the few "wild" rivers left around the Portland area, that is to say it isn't dammed and the salmon still run up it, nearly to the base of Mt Hood.

While I was driving on Salmon River Road, I nearly hit two deer, which is no big deal...but I caught it on video. Then a few minutes later I caught another deer in the road in video too. This validates my idea of having video running all the time, I’d never had gotten these videos if I had to pick up the camera and turn it on.

Considering it was nearly dark and that the camera rattles like mad, the video quality is OK. It was better than I expected as this particular camera (like all CMOS High Def cameras) has poor low light performance.

Back to the stick structure.

2010-09-12T21:00:00.000-07:00

I then went back to Rod Creek Road, to get a better look at the stick formation I saw a couple weeks ago. I walked all the way out to it, around it and under it. All around the structure it it's all muddy and I was up to my ankles in muck the whole time. Having gotten a closer look at it...I'm more mystified as to what the heck it is.

All I can say is "huh, this is weird".

Gifford Pinchot

2010-09-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

This Labor Day weekend, I took a weekend trip up in Gifford Pinchot National Forest. I hung out with one of my friends.

Our original intent was to camp at Black Pond off of road 29, but when we got there, it turns out Black Pond is really just a swamp. Not wanting to be mosquito bait, we headed to a spot several miles south that he’d scouted out earlier.

We ended up on a great spot along McCoy Creek.

The weekend was relaxed camping. We hiked around a couple streams, but found nothing except cool end of summer weather. Actually there wasn’t much animal sign to speak of in the area, a few elk and deer tracks and some bear scat, but that was it.

Rod Creek Road, again.

2010-08-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

Went out for a quick trip Saturday, saw this interesting formation. Not sure what to think of it. I couldn't get close because it was marshy between me and the formation. The video is zoomed a lot, so I wasn't as close as it looks in the video. When I have more time, I plan to get back to this location to examine this area more.

This area is interesting. Last weekend I recorded some possible wood knocking close to here.

Linney Creek

2010-08-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

I took a day trip up to The Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness area in Mt Hood National Forest. Along the way I checked out a couple lakes. I followed Road 240 (off road 58) to its end. It terminates at the border of the Salmon Huckleberry Wilderness, and I was curious to see what was there.

Turns out there is a small campground there called Linney Creek Campground that is amazingly beautiful. It's in a bottom of a small creek valley and surrounded by old growth trees. I met a man there with his teenage daughter and they were setting up camp. He said he’d been coming there since he was a young boy and he told me about some of the interesting trails and falls in the area. There was no one else there, which was no surprise as the road is 6 miles of narrow nerve wrenching rock strewn driving. I definitely will check this area out again in the future.

Linney Creek Campground

Linney Creek Campground

Mt Hood from Road 240

Back to Rod Creek Road and Dinger Lake

2010-08-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

I went back to Rod Creek Road today, since I had more daylight to explore. The area is great; the road goes down at least five miles and has lots of side roads to explore. There are two marshy areas that I checked out and looked for tracks (found none). I stopped for a while at the area with the red “X” on it.

It’s a beautiful spot with some old growth that’s deep in an area where humans haven’t been around much.

Then I headed over to High Rock and Abbott Road and poked around a bit, didn’t see much of interest other than the beautiful view of Mt Hood.

Then I headed down to Dinger Lake. It’s was an interesting ride as I took a wrong road and ended up on a horse trial. I was going over huge boulders. Fortunately I made it out to a "regular" dirt road and finally found the lake.

Back to Salmonberry

2010-08-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

I went back down to the Salmonberry River today, took the family down to escape from the miniature PNW heat wave (three days over 90 and it’s a heat wave). The "intense" part of Beaver Slide Road goes down the north side of the valley and descends from 2400 feet to 900 feet at the river. It’s an interesting ride in a full size pickup, the road isn’t much wider than the truck in spots.

It was a fun afternoon playing in the cool water.

Scouting Indian Henry Road

2010-08-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

I took a rare after work excursion; I went out to the Indian Henry road (also called Sandstone Road or NFR 4620) off the Clackamas River. My goal was to check out Bug Creek Road for future use for a camping trip.

I started down Bug Creak Road (point A on the map), but I was disappointed because the road ends in about a half mile (point B). It ends in a permanent berm and it doesn’t look like a good place to set up a base camp.

I figured since I was out there that I’d explore Indian Henry Road some more and a little further up road I found that the gate for Rod Creek Road was open (point C), which I’d never has seen open before. I drove down that road about a mile and a half (point D), which doesn’t sound far, but because it’s narrow and curvy, it took a while. Also I was losing all daylight and it difficult to scout effectively by head lights as you can’t see the side very well.

I have no idea why the gate was open, but it’s a great area for future investigating, it’s relatively flat and has lots of little marshy areas that attract wildlife and would be great to check out for tracks.

Salmonberry River via Beaver Slide Road

2010-08-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

Last May I tried to get down to the Salmonberry River via Beaverslide Road, but turned around due to steepness and general slipperiness.

Last Sunday I made it down without incident. It's beautiful down there.

Rainier Area

2010-07-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I took a trip up to the Rainier Area for a three day outing. We had a prime spot at about 3600 feet with commanding views of the mountain nearby.

I drove to the top of nearby Suntop mountain, which has a fire lookout tower. it also has some of the most beutiful views on the planet, 360 degrees of mountains and valleys.

This is the sign when leaving Mt. Rainer National park and entering Gifford Pinchot National Forest. All the national forsests should have an entrance sign this cool.

On the way home I went down Mt. St. Helen's east side.

Skokomish Valley Olympic Forest

2010-07-18T20:25:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I took a trip to the Skokomish Valley in the southwest corner of the Olympic National Forest. Met up with my friend Robert and we attempted to find a camp spot in the dark, which it turns out, is tricky. We ended up at Lake Wynoochee Friday night. The lake is fairly popular with tourists, but despite that the woods were quiet. Next morning we got up and headed back toward the Skokomish Valley. We followed our GPS units, which took us over a mountain pass that was a virtual goat trail, instead of the nice low valley road we took the previous evening. But the mountain pass had some killer views.

Back at the Valley, we scouted out places to camp and found a killer spot I’ve dubbed “camp smoky bark” (more on that later).

Saturday we hung around camp and set out some wildlife attractants. We could hear people down on the Skokomish, a popular hiking trail, but we couldn’t see the river because the banks are so steep and high.

That night we hung out at the fire and listened to the night sounds, but all we heard was an owl and a few birds.

There was a recently fallen old growth tree nearby. It had been cut to allow vehicle access on the road and there was a lot of bark lying around. Old growth bark is about 4 to 6 inches thick. The bark burns like mad in a hot fire with raging hot coals, which we had Saturday night. In a cooler fire, like Sunday morning, the bark tended to smoke. 800 year old bark is interesting stuff.

After lunch Robert headed home and I explored the north side of the river a bit, then I headed home.

Mt. St. Helens: Ape Cave, Ape Canyon, and the Sasquatch Ski Trail

2010-07-11T20:00:00.000-07:00

Took a day trip up to the Ape Cave area Saturday.

This is the "Ape Headquarters" at the Ape Caves parking lot. You can rent lanterns and sign up for guided tours here.

These caves are DARK.

Looking up at the entrance/exit at the lower end of the cave. Outside it’s about 80 degrees, where I’m standing it’s about 42 degrees.

Looking back down into the cave from the staircase.

Mt. St. Helens from one of the south-eastern lahars.

Close-up from the same location.

Looking down into Lava Canyon, the picture doesn’t show the depth well. It’s very far down into the canyon.

Turned around from the same location, looking up the river/stream.

Suspension bridge down in the canyon, it’s just like the one out of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”

The trailhead of Ape Canyon Trail.

Looking at the mountain from the lahar that the Ape Canyon trail parallels.

The same lahar, picture taken further down from the above picture.

Sasquatch Ski Trail…cool, huh?

Tarzan Springs, High Rock Quarry, and the Glen Thomas Site

2010-07-05T22:31:00.000-07:00

Drove up the Clackamas River (which is actually driving south) to road 4670 in Mt Hood National Forest and drove up to Tarzan Springs. I’ve wanted to get into this area since last fall and this was the first time I was able to get in this year since enough snow had melted. I was surprised to find relatively fresh cutting above the Tarzan Springs area. While driving on the unnumbered road in the cutting area I spooked a black bear and it ran along the road in front of my rig a few hundred feet. Because I left my inverter at home however, I wasn’t running my dash camera and didn’t capture it on video. Won't make that mistake again.

Fresh cutting above (east of) Tarzan Springs

I then went to the high rock quarry I’ve heard and read about. It has spectacular views of Mt Hood and Mt Jefferson.

I then continued on to road 6310 and found the road that goes into the Glen Thomas site. I didn’t have enough daylight to explore this area much, but I was finally able to scout it out.

Hard to read, but the sign says "Road to Burnt Granite Trail"

I continued on down 6310, a high road that is tight in places because it’s not maintained and there are a couple washed out areas. I eventually made my way down to the Collowash. It’s a truly beautiful drive up and over the Granite Peaks ridgeline with great views in all directions. I certainly want to get back in the area more this summer.

Roads 44, 42, and Dalles Watershed

2010-07-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday we took a day trip out around Mt. Hood. I wanted to check out the area of this sighting. Also I'd never been to the northwest side of the Mt. Hood National forest, so I thought this would make a good excuse to explore this part of the forest. We drove up HWY 35 and stopped along the way to check out the North fork of Hood River. The river was flowing mild and it was a perfect place to stop and enjoy the warm sunny weather and let the dog run around.

Then we went up road 44 and explored the area. This part of the forest is east of the ridgeline of the Cascades and has a drier feel to it, with smaller trees and virtually no moss. We drove around and one thing I found interesting is that a lot of this area is off limits to camping and other human activity because it’s part the The Dalles watershed (that is the correct spelling, the city is called “The Dalles”). It’s interesting because with little human activity and limited hunting, wildlife could roam about in that area with little fear of encountering humans.

This area offers some spectacular views of the east side of the Mountain. A side Portlanders rarely see.

The North side of the mountain as seen from Hwy 35.

Then we moved on the Timothy Lake and Road 42. We briefly stopped at Summit Lake, which should be renamed mosquito lake, as there were more mosquitoes there than I have ever seen in the PNW.

Along the way this rock art was encountered.

"I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque"

2010-06-06T18:53:00.000-07:00

To quote my favorite actor, "I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque". I explored the Upper Molalla Area Saturday, I took a road that I'd previously missed on my visits to this area. How did I miss the Upper Molalla Road? And it turns out it took me exactly where I wanted to go, well if it wasn't for those pesky gates. I wanted to visit the Cooper Canyon area, but was blocked by a gate.

Then I tried to get over to Clackamas area via road 7010, but was again blocked by a gate. I feel like my blog is becoming the cataloging of local gates.

This was a repeat of my excursion last fall. Deja-vu all over again.

So I had to take the LONG way around to the Clackamas because I wanted to explore the High Rock area. After the 60 minutes drive I got there, but I couldn't get all the way to High Rock due to snow.

While I was stopped at the base of the peak, I spotted a large dark creature up near the top; excitedly I got out my binoculars and spotted a black bear grazing the grass and moss on the rocks. I watched him/her for about 15 minutes until it wandered out of view. It didn’t show up in pictures as it was too far away. But it was fun watching the bear as it’s been ages since I’ve seen a bear in the wild.

Area where I watched the bear through binoculars

I tried to get to Dinger Lake from the north, but the snow was too deep, so I approached it from the south and was stopped because the south access doesn’t go all the way to the lake. I hung out there a while and tried out my new Zoom H4n. It’s great recorder and very sensitive, in fact so sensitive that it picks up a ton of wind noise and the sound of a cooling truck engine too. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up some fun sounds with it in future outings.

On the drive into Dinger Lake I caught deer crossing the road twice. This helps validate my idea that having a camera running all the time will increase the chances of catching "wildlife" on video.

Abiqua and the North Fork of the Salmonberry River, and gates

2010-06-01T18:50:00.000-07:00

Abiqua Area Map

Drove down to the Abiqua area Sunday, this region is privately owned by Longview Timber. First I tried coming in from Abiqua Road, which was gated off (despite information on the web indicating it is open during the day). Tried approaching from three different roads, all of them gated off too. Backtracked and tried Crooked Finger Road and made it in deeper, but again was stopped by a gate.

Crooked Finger Road Gate

Not sure if there is any approved way into this basin. However we made a side trip over to Upper and Lower Butte Falls which were very beautiful and it was sort of dry, so we hiked down to the Upper and Lower Falls.

Upper Butte Falls

Behind the Upper Falls

Lower Falls

Mossy Trees

Then I drove back out towards Tillamook State Forest. I found a road down to the North Fork of the Salmonberry River that isn’t on any map. It was a primitive road, but in better shape than Beaver Slide Road that is a couple miles away. The Salmonberry River valley (and its North Fork) are small rivers etched deep into narrow steep canyons and are very beautiful. On the way out I found the railroad tracks that in theory follow the Salmonberry River to the track washout at the Nehalem River. I did find some pictures posted on Google Earth showing a washout at Wolf Creek.

North Fork of the Salmonberry River

Whoop sound update

2010-05-19T19:37:00.000-07:00

Blogger Skookum Qwest had noticed my posts about the weird culvert noise and sent me an email suggesting it was the a Blue Grouse call. I think that is it, the YouTube clips sound exactly like what I heard.

And it would explain why last Sunday we heard the call from three different areas around us. It also explains why I couldn't find the maker of the closest sound, it was right in front of me, but I couldn't find the exact source. They must hide pretty good. The call can be quite loud. As I mentioned in the first video, I could feel the bass ripple and vibrate in my chest a couple times. Funny how such a small animal (relatively) can produce so much bass in their call.

Check out these clips:
Blue Grouse mating call

Blue Grouse Mating Call

Coast Range, Steep Roads, Logger Art, Steel in Trees, and More Whoop Sounds

2010-05-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

My daughter and I drove up into the coast range Sunday, we went to an area just east of Tillamook State Forest. The roads back there are a lot different than the national forest roads. They are a maze of new roads and old roads. It seems most of the area is owned by Longview Fibre, a paper products company. There is a lot of active logging back in there; some second growth thinning and in some areas 100% clear cutting.

My goal was the Beaver Slide Road/Belding Road intersection of the Salmonberry River. This is about 10 or 11 miles east of the washed out tracks I saw last year.

I approached from the north, Wheeler Pond Road. We found that Beaver Slide Road is, well it’s an intense ride. It's extremely steep and rutted, with running water streaming down some parts of the road. It’s only a couple miles long, but it’s all down, down, down. In fact I stopped about 3/4 of a mile from the river as I approached my limit of comfort for having one vehicle and no winch. I left it for another adventure, another day. Maybe I’ll try the approach from the south side next; on a topo map it looks less steep.

This is the wide open area that is the intersection of the North Folk Salmonberry Road, Wheeler Pond Road, and Beaver Slide Road. This area was logged not long ago. On Google earth it's not wide open like it is now.

At this intersection we found this, one of those things you see in the woods that makes you go "humm...". A piece of railway steel that has been in these trees a long time. So long that they have grown completely around the steel.

Along the way we saw this, a section of tree was standing vertical next to the road. It was precariously balanced and it took little effort to push it over. However it was VERY heavy, it would take at least two men to lift it back up. Is this some logger totem pole humor? Object d'art?

More logger art?

The beautiful, secluded Salmonberry River Valley

It’s certainly a very interesting area. The Salmonberry River Valley itself seems remote and secluded. I think that section of railroad track would make an excellent area to research. I wonder how much of that track is still in place? I'd love to make a rail bike and cruise that valley at night with night vision! Who knows what wildlife one could find out there.

The left "X" is the washed out bridge where the Salmonberry drains into the Nehalem. The right "X" is the spot I tried to get down to yesterday. Between them is, as far as I know, nothing but secluded river valley and an inactive rail line.

When we were parked out on an overlooked above the Salmonberry River we both heard a ‘whoop-whoop-whoop’ sound, the same sound I heard the previous weekend up by Thunder Mountain in the Mt Hood national Forest about 80 miles away. I didn’t have my Rode microphone with me, so I just used the video camera’s microphones. The camera has a lot of inherent noise, so there is a lot of hiss, but one can hear the whoop sounds on this @ 0:44 and 1:03. (You really have to crank the volume).

The odd part was that we could hear three distinct areas the sounds were coming from, one very close on a knoll next to us, one up a hill above the road and another about 1/4 mile away, down the road. There was a big culvert about 1/4 mile away that may have been the source, but when we got close to it all we could hear was water rushing through it. I couldn’t tell if these were sounds from some animal (bull frogs?), or some odd acoustic thing that happened in the woods.

Twenty years of poking around these forests and I've never heard this sound...then I hear it on two consecutive Sundays. Odd...just odd. I love the weird wonderful things one can discover in the woods.

Granite Peak Road

2010-05-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday I drove up to National forest Road 6310, Granite Peak Road. First I explored a side road called just Granite Road, which has a lot of active logging on it. In fact some of the loggers were camped out there in trailers. I drove beyond the logging area and got to about 3680 feet when I was stopped by about two feet of snow.

Then I went back to 6310, Granite Peak Road. It's a very interesting road, there is very little traffic on it because I was breaking new tracks through snow patches and in a couple spots I had to move some small trees. Along this road at about 3600-3700 feet there is a lot of game sign. I saw many deer tracks and in places it seemed a herd had been through with fresh tracks in the mud. I also saw a lot of coyote tracks, I wonder if they shadow the deer? I saw some larger paw tracks too, I wonder if they were cougar, but it was hard to tell because they were older and indistinct. It seems the game run up and down that western ridge of Granite Peak, because a couple weeks ago I also saw fresh tracks on road 6311 which is lower down the same hill/ridgeline.

It was refreshing to find a lightly traveled road in the middle of the Collawash/Clackamas area. I got to 3800 feet on road 6310 before hitting deep snow. This road goes over Granite ridge and comes down into the area of the Glen Thomas site and Tarzan Springs, so it’s a very interesting area for further poking around.

Then I went down, crossed the Collowash, and drove up towards 4620 and Thunder Mountain. I only got to 3540 feet before being stopped by snow, still about 3.5 miles from Thunder Mountain/Skookum Lake area.

On the way down I stopped at a bright sunny spot to take a break and I started to hear an odd “whoosh-whoosh”. It sounded exactly like one of those tubes that you spin and it creates a pulsing noise. I thought that THAT was a strange noise to hear in the middle of nowhere. Further investigation showed that it seemed to come from a culvert. Check out the video. The first 15 seconds or so are recorded with a Canon HD camera using a Rode microphone and you can hear the sound. The rest of the video is me describing the sound while I'm wearing a ContourHD camera. The Contour's mic doesn't pick up the sound. At times the sound was loud, in fact when I first stopped and got out, I could feel it vibrate in my chest. What a weird odd interesting acoustic phenomenon.

224, Collawash, and Rock Art

2010-04-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I tried to get all the way through the Clackamas River Highway (Hwy 224) to Detroit Lake. I made to it road 6350 where I was stopped by snow. This was at about 4000 feet, which was much higher than I expected to get, but being a wide asphalt road it melts faster than the logging roads.

I rarely get that far south on 224, so it was fun exploring a lot of side roads. I drove up Road 42 and explored some of its side roads. Road 42 goes through the eastern side of the Mt Hood National Forest and ends up at Timothy Lake. I look forward to exploring it more when the snow melts more, it seems that part of the forest is traveled less since it’s farther from Portland and day users.

One thing that’s curious is that there is always rock stacking in this part of the forest. I’ve yet to travel the Collawash area and NOT see rock stacking art. I saw this is I was driving south on 224.

Rock Art

Back at the Collawash River, I saw that the gate for Road 6311 was open, and it looked freshly opened as there were no tire tracks in the mud. I drove down it a ways and it’s a very interesting road, very remote and it has that claustrophobic, closed in feeling. I saw lots of elk (or really big deer – I’m not sure) tracks in the mud along this road. This road is definitely on my future list of roads to investigate further.

And finally I turned up Road 6310 and followed it a while. It’s an asphalt road and parallels one of the huge sets of high tension lines that run through the forest. This is another road on my must check out soon list, it (at least on the map) goes past the Granite Peaks, crosses that ridge and comes down in the Lowe Creek/Tarzan Springs/Glen Thomas site/Big Bottoms area. Very interesting road to check out, hopefully it’s traversable all that way (once the snow melts).

With the warm spring weather, there is lot's of snow melt and all the streams and rivers were high.

Water everywhere

Road 45

2010-04-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

Went out for a short trek on road 45 this last Sunday. This road does a long thread through the lower Clackamas Drainage area, meanders by Memaloose Creek, parallels the north bank of Fish Creek, and comes back out on the Clackamas River. So a 30 mile drive brings you back about 1.5 miles from where you started. There are several lakes and other interesting areas along the way.

If it was summer, you could follow the entire route in blue. In fact I was hoping to cut across to the Mollola drainage, which I think you can do (at least on the map it shows you can), however low snow hampered my progress this trip. I made it only a few miles up the road. So I stopped and tinkered with some camera settings and tried out my new Rode microphone. The mic is fantastic, well worth the price if you do much sound recording.

Nothing else of any interest, just lots of mud from the melting snow.

From the Zoo to Squaw Lake...almost

2010-04-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

I wanted to go to Squaw Lake/Meadows (now officially called Tumala Lake/Meadows). Specifically I wanted to check out some game trails above the lake that I saw last summer. Unfortunately I was stopped at about 2800 feet by snow, five miles from the lake. There has been a lot of moisture here in the PNW the last couple weeks and up in the mountains it falls as snow. A couple weeks ago I went up to 3600 feet easily, but yesterday I was stopped much sooner. What a difference a week of cold temperatures makes.

The great thing about fresh snow is that it's easy to look for animal tracks. I drove for miles on roads above the snow line. I saw two sets of coyote tracks, one set of deer tracks, and a few bunny trails, that was it. Fresh snow that had fallen Saturday night, so many of the roads I was driving had virgin snow. It's GREAT for track hunting!

I made another time lapse video. This time from Portland (the Zoo exit), through downtown, past Estacada, and into the woods. 60 miles in 6 minutes, or about 600mph (average).

I had a new mount for the time lapse camera that is much sturdier. It's a vacuum mount from Filmtools. It's a very rugged tool and great for my purpose (it's the funny looking thing on the right side of the windshield.

I also tried a new homemade video camera mount with an elastic suspension. It took out a lot of the smaller vibrations from the engine and so forth, but it wobbled too much. Then I tried the video camera on the Filmtools mount and it was better, in fact the best yet, but it too vibrated a lot from the Jeep's harsh ride. I'm still "in development" on this and have a couple more ideas to try.

No field work, more camera stuff

2010-03-29T12:14:00.000-07:00

Still researching and working on camera mounts.

This all started because my Sony MiniDV Handycam basically died. The camera just sees "black", but everything else still works on the camera. I did find out my Sony Handycam was part of a bigger quality issue Sony had with cameras from 2004-2006 time frame. There were many cameras with defective sensors that failed in exactly the same manner mine has. As luck would have it, Sony stopped the free repairs of these cameras in March 2009 (my died summer 2009). Now Sony charges $200 minimum to fix a camera. The bummer is that this camera worked great as a dash cam.

MiniDV cameras have an advantage for field work in that they compress the video much less than flash based cameras and thus retain better image detail. But no one makes consumer level MiniDV cameras anymore. That's why I bought a HD flash camera to replace it, but that camera has other issues other issues.

I'm also working on a home made Steadicam to help smooth out camcorder shots. This has nothing to do with road use, but it's taking up a lot of my spare time.

Out of the Woods at 150mph

2010-03-23T14:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a time lapse video driving out of an Oregon Rain forest; from the snowline at 3600 feet on Mt Hood Forest Road 4635, past the Ripplebrook Ranger Station, down the Clackamas River Highway (Hwy 225), and stopping at Estacada, Oregon.

The time commpression is two hours into 8 minutes, or 15:1. So at 10 mph (typical speed in the woods) that is 150mph on the screen. Highway speed of 55mph is 825mph on the screen!

Pictures

2010-03-23T14:00:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from Sunday's excursion.

Here's where I finally got to solid dirt after backing down the snow covered ice. Right about here:

Mount for the video camera, Neoprene isolator mounted to a (somewhat) solid platform bolted to the roll cage. This was my best test case to date using my limited fabrication facilities.

This failed miserably.

Pocket camera used for time lapse videos, anchored to a MagBag. Note the very solid mount that I bolted to the defrost vent area of the dash. I forgot to take into account that the lens extends when the camera turns on. So when hit the ON button, the lens smacked into the windshield. D'oh!

This is a learning process.

More camera work - Road 4635

2010-03-22T13:00:00.000-07:00

I'm still messing around with various camera mounts. Trying to get smooth, clear video I’m finding to be an impossible task. I’ve given up on the roll bar mount and will concentrate on windshield/dash mounts. I might have to give up HD as it’s just too finicky. My HD camera produces a wash of visual vibration in its images that makes HD useless. I have been playing around with stop motion/time lapse. My little Canon pocket camera has built in time lapse and it makes fun videos of road trips because it makes it look like you’re driving 400mph. I’ll post something to YouTube when I get a chance.

Sunday (yesterday) I went up to road Mt Hood Forest road 4635, I’ve wanted to check this road out because it leads up to a wide plateau above the Roaring River and it has lots of lakes and creeks. I made it up to about 3600 feet before encountering shallow but very slick snow covering ice. I had no idea the snow had ice under it, but found out when I started spinning. Slick conditions on a narrow road carved into the side of a steep ridge isn’t fun, especially when it’s so slick that brakes just make you slide more as the wheels lock up. I had a hairy time backing down about 400 yards of snow/ice covered road and I was drenched in sweat by the time I reached dirt.

This road certainly warrants further checking out when it gets warmer. I didn’t even get up to the part where the road levels out into a plateau at about 4000 feet. I did see game trails and some deer tracks, so there is plenty of wildlife up there.

Memaloose Road and cameras

2010-03-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

Memaloose Road

I forget to mention that I drove up Memaloose Road (road 45) last time I was out on March 7. Wow, it’s changed. Over the winter the forest service blocked off EVERY side road for the first two miles (from the Clackamas River end of the road). As I was driving up Memaloose Road I was beginning to panic, because 45 leads to 4550 that in turn leads to the back edge of the Fish Creek valley, which is called Divide Ridge and is a very interesting area.

Road 45 also has the only open back road connection that I know of between the Clackamas River Valley and the upper Molalla river basins. But the closures were only the first two miles, which is also the no shooting zone. I think they did this because Memaloose Road is extremely popular with shooters and some were ignoring the two mile zone, thus they just shut off all the access roads and turn offs in that zone. So I was relieved when I got up to the turn off for road 4550 and it was still open.

Car Cameras

I’ve started running video while I drive on backs roads because it’s fun, and what if I run across some interesting wildlife while I’m out there? It’d be great to capture it on video. My old Sony handycan was good at this because it had great low light and night capabilities, and its relatively low resolution didn’t pick up much vibration. It’d stick it up on the dash and it would film away. Unfortunately it developed a problem and stopped working (it was 6+ years old).

So I invested in a new flash based HD camera, goodbye tapes! Well, the new cameras have CMOS sensors which have issues filming moving objects that is called rolling shutter effect. Remember the action sequences in “Saving Private Ryan”? Well it’s like that but much worse. In fact sometimes it makes watching films unwatchable because they have a wavy effect. Add to that, the HD aspect seems to pick up every vibration. Playing with settings seems to make getting around the rolling shutter possible, but the vibration is a big problem.

So I’ve been messing with different mounts. I tried a MagBag, and it didn’t help. This weekend I tried a super solid mount bolted to the roll bar, and while it was better, the vibration still washed out many details of the video.

I’ve been scouring the web looking for ideas and I think next I’ll try making a 4-bar linkage with some sort of iso-elastic damping system. Sort of a steadi-cam for a car. I'll keep you posted.

More exploring

2010-03-10T13:00:00.000-08:00

The last couple weekends (Feb 28 and March 7) I took day trips up into the Clackamas area.

On the 28th I took another hike up the Roaring River, but didn't get far because the trail is way too rough for me to want to hike without a partner. Then I drove on up the road to Timothy Lake, but didn't get far as it's gated off (because of snow, per the sign at the gate). So then I tried to get to High Rock, but was stopped because of snow. I didn't see anything while I was out, just snow and other people enjoying the outdoors.

Last Sunday I drove up the Indian Henry road to scout out a spot to set up a recorder to try and capture the coyote/cougar(?) screams I heard last spring/summer while camping. I'm thinking of trying to drop off a recorder with a large battery pack and leave it out for say a week at a time. The Zoom recorders have a pre-record/threshold setting that I think would work. The units constantly monitor and if a sound gets above a certain threshold it'll start recording, and it also include the previous 5 seconds too. So I need to find a well hidden spot that has good proximity to the area I think the sounds came from.

Then I drove up Three Lynx road. It's an interesting drive because it parallels the pipeline that comes from Timothy Lake. Up just past Frog Lake I came across a 4-5 deer. The most I've seen together in a while. I want to return here and try to find road 4635 that goes to the top of the Roaring River ridge/plateau. But with the low snow this week, I doubt I could get very far up that road.

Roaring, Clackamas, and Collawash Rivers

2010-02-22T15:00:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed this unusual mid winter stretch of warm sunny weather and drove out to the Clackamas River Valley and hit some of my favorite spots. First I stopped at Roaring River and took a short hike up the river.

I’ve paralleled this river from the ridge to it’s north, along the Abbott Road, but I’ve never been down near the water. I just took a brief walk to get a feel for the area. The trail quickly becomes narrow and rugged. Hopefully I’ll return here when I can spent more time in this area.

Near the beginning of the trail, I came across this bar stool. You’ll never know what you’ll come across in the woods.

I then drove up to Indian Henry and drove up that road about four miles. The water flow in the stream that this road parallels (Sandstone Road on some maps) is much lower than it was last year in June! Of course there had been no rain the last week, maybe this stream is more dependent on recent rainfall than snow melt. Speaking of snow, there is hardly any this year. Last year the snow was down around 1500-2000. Today I was able to get to 3800 feet before I even saw snow.

Then I drove on up to the back half of road 4620 (on the way to Thunder Mountain/Skookum Lake trail) and was stopped at about 3800 feet by snow. I might have been able to keep going, but I’ve been stuck too many times in snow to dare push it, especially when alone.

Then I went back down to the Collawash river. I stopped at the Little Fan campground which is along the Collawash, off road 63. This section of road 63 just opened last November, it had been closed due to a wash out a couple years ago. Snapped this picture of some cute rock art next to the river.

This seems to be the little brother of the big one I Saw last fall. Seems rock art is popular along the Collawash.

I then drove up as far as I could toward the Bull of the Woods Wilderness. I’d never been back in there and it certainly is a remote area. I didn’t see any other vehicles the entire time I was up there. I stopped at about 3600-3800 feet due to snow. I really like this area and I think I’ll try to get back here later in the year.

Nehalem River Area

2010-02-15T15:00:00.000-08:00

Last year I drove down the Nehalem River and found a washed out bridge at the Salmonberry River.

Nehalem

Today I drove further out 26, then down route 53 and onto some back roads in the Clatsop State Forest. I didn't see much of interest, just lots of trees and moss. This area has much more moss on the ground and trees than further east around Mt Hood or St Helens. Of course this area is much closer to the coast and gets more rain. In fact I could smell the salt air while I was in the forest.

There is a lot more logging here than around Hood and Helens. I saw many trucks hauling wood and many more clear cuts. I've noticed there seems to be more logging allowed in the State Forests than the National ones.

Whoop whoop?

2010-01-23T15:00:00.000-08:00

January 23

I heard a single very loud "WooooOOOPPPPP". First time I've heard anything I couldn't explain as a known animal.

I was parked at the Two Rivers Picnic parking spot near the confluence of the Clackamas and Collawash Rivers. There weren’t many people out that night, in fact I saw only two other cars the entire night out there on the Clackamas. The Clackamas River highway is closed off due to snow a bit further south this time of year, so there isn't much traffic right now. And it was about 10pm on a Friday night in a heavy downpour. Who would be out there to make one single Whoop sound? Without flashlights? In a heavy, cold rain?

Whatever/whoever it was was large enough to make a clear sound over the noise of the fast rolling river and the downpour of rain. It happened maybe 15 seconds after I parked and shut off my truck. I stayed about another 30 minutes, but heard nothing else unusual. It was loud, but not scary or frightfully so. Whatever made the sound, it seemed like a "hey guys, watch out...humans around" warning sound, similar to squirrels chattering when you enter their territory. But that is just conjecture.

The tone of the sound was very clear...not...well animal-like (if that makes sense) and with lots of bass. My first idea was maybe someone was call blasting with very good equipment, but I thought I'd hear more blasts/sounds in 30 minutes. And there were no other cars in this area. And I did yell out a couple "Hello?"s before I left and heard nothing in reply.

My second thought was that that it sounded like a jungle sound one hears in movies that take place in the...well the jungle. So are there birds in the PNW that “Whoop” like jungle birds? I dunno.

The whole thing sort of left me scratching my head.

Getting Out Again

2010-01-13T15:00:00.000-08:00

I sort of took the winter off from getting out into the wilds of Oregon and Washington. But I've been getting out the last month or so and I need to catch up on the blogging.

Timber

2009-11-22T23:00:00.000-08:00

Took a small drive up through Timber (in this case it's a town, not lumber) and then back on Strassel Road. Strassel Road is interesting because it's a narrow muddy road that has a number of houses on it, most with property.

Didn't see much of note. There are some side roads, but I didn't have time to check out many of them.

The Big Bottom

2009-11-08T23:00:00.000-08:00

Drove down to the Big Bottom area today. I didn't have long because I got a late start. There was snow at around 3000 feet and I had to stop around 4000 feet because the snow was about a foot deep.

Road 63 is open, the bridge washout is fixed. I drove in to where the road turns dirt. It was dark, so I didn't see much, but it's good to know that road is open now.

Hideaway Lake and High Rock

2009-11-01T23:12:00.000-08:00

Today I explored some of the roads north of Forest Road 57 (Timothy Lake to Ripplebrook road). I went up to Hideaway Lake, which is an interesting little mountain lake. It was very still and quiet up there, besides some recent boot prints in the snow, there was no sign of human activity up there. It had snowed during the week, but most of it melted enough that I had no trouble getting to the lake. I did try to explore beyond the lake, as there are some meadows up there I wanted to check out. However I quickly encountered deeper snow that was only a few inches thick, but had melted and refrozen and was extremely slippery because it was ice underneath. I turned around and put those meadows on my “explore next year” list. It was very cold up there, even though the sun was out; the mud puddles still had a thin layer of ice over them, even past noon.

On the road up there I saw this bit of stick art. The road had had the brush trimmed, likely this summer by the looks. What the forest service does is run a large device that is essentially a huge vertical mower that hack and trims the branches from the sides of the roads. This leaves lots of branches at the sides of the roads. Some one took dozens and dozens of these and made this sort of stick art stump decoration. Pictures don’t do it justice, as it was pretty large and must have taken some time to complete. It never ceases to amaze me what one can find out in the woods.

I went up to the High Rock area. I found the southern end of Abbott Road. I had tried to drive through Abbott Road from the north end this summer, but was stopped by a rock slide. The south side is more clearly marked, warning people “winch only”.

Found an interesting rock quarry up there. Some one made a nice rock stack.

Whale Head and Berms

2009-10-26T08:32:00.000-07:00

I made it up to Whale Head today. Whale Head is the east termination point of the long ridgeline that forms the eastern/southern Fish Creek divide. It’s one of the large ridge tops that looms above the Clackamas River. It's a funny name for a ridge, maybe from some angle it looks like a whale's head, but I don't see it.

It was raining and quite cool today, certainly one of the coolest days yet this fall. That might account for it being so quiet in the woods today. I didn’t see any animal tracks to speak of. A couple hoof prints of a large deer or small elk. And of course the ever present human boot prints, it never fails to amaze me where I’ll see boot prints. I stopped at one scenic overlook to admire the view. As I was looking out over the Clackamas River valley I looked down and saw trail of fairly fresh boot prints. The prints came out of the woods and up a very steep hill; it would have taken a lot of physical effort to walk up the steep soft dirt slope. Why some one would do this was beyond me, all I could thing was that it was a hunter on the trail of some game. Maybe there’s a new extreme sport of wilderness hill climbing that some one is training for?

There have been a lot of roads bermed off up at the top. These berms look very recent, since the dirt still has fresh backhoe marks and it hasn’t been weathered by rain and snow. This is happening more and more around here, roads once open are being closed off. I understand the Forest Service is doing this to protect ecosystems from various forms of manmade abuse, but it’s depressing to those of us that like to get out and drive these roads.

Berm

Berm and ditch

I then drove further south past the Bagby Hot Springs area to the end of road 4620, where I was last week. I enjoyed the drive out there as it goes through some interesting sections of geology and some stands of old growth. I studied the Fish Creek Divide ridge more carefully as I drove along the road, looking for the point of least resistance to get up and over the ridge. I also tried to figure out where exactly trailhead for TR543 is. I found two possibilities for the trailhead, but I’m not sure which it is.

The predictions are that the snow level will come down to 1500-2500 feet this week, with up to a foot of snow in the hills. That will certainly reduce the number of roads accessible around here.

Some nice views from the Thunder Mountain area.

Fall colors are still bright down in the lower elevations.

I'm putting some Clackamas Links here, mostly for my own future reference.:
Clackamas Ranger District Trail Reports
Clackamas Ranger District Road Reports
Portland Hikers
Trail Advocates
TR542
TR543

Forest Road 4620

2009-10-18T23:10:00.000-07:00

Today I made it to the end of Forest Road 4620. This road originates down at Indian Henry campground, but the middle section has been torn up because it goes through the Fish Creek area. All the roads in the Fish Creek drainage were torn up around 1999 to protect the ecosystem there. So the back section of 4620 can be accessed from forest road 6320, which is off of FR63, just before the Bagby Road/FR70 turn off. It gets confusing because there is a maze of roads in there, especially if you look at Google Earth, but most of the roads have been closed off. The best resource is an up to date Forest Service map that shows which roads are gated and decommissioned (torn up and/or bermed off). The weather was amazing (warm and sunny) and the fall colors were in full display. I finally made it very close to Skookum Lake. At the closest I was about half a mile from the lake, although a very large ridge separated the road I was on from the Lake, about 800 feet up and down over rough terrain.

It was a great day.

Maybe next summer I can plan a hike up and over the ridge, and actually see Skookum Lake.

Here's a picture of a rock pile someone made in the Middle of the Collawash River.

The fall colors were striking.

Here's a picture of what I think is the end of road 350 (or the road 350 bracnches off, it's hard to tell). This goes right past Skookum Lake. Notice it's been ripped up.

Here's a map of where I was. The red circle is the end of road 4620, the arrow is the direction of the above picture.

Vernonia - Apiary Road / Canaan Road

2009-10-05T13:49:00.002-07:00

Took a drive up past Vernonia and east via Apiary and Canaan roads. Not much to report because most of the side roads are gated up there. That area is mostly privately owned and logged by various timber companies that ship lumber out of Longview. I did go up a couple roads that weren't gated, but the roads aren't very long. I didn't even take many pictures, so not much to post.

Can't get there from here.

2009-09-08T20:37:00.000-07:00

I tried to get through to the Clackamas River from the Mollola River. The only road that I can find that doesn't have a landslide is...gated.

Road 7010 cuts through from the Upper Mollola to the Clackamas. However this is what I found.

I was surprised how many trucks were out with guys in them, then I stopped to talk with some and they were hunters. It’s bow hunting season here in NW Oregon. I didn’t know the season started this early. So be careful if you are out in this area, there are a lot of others folks in the woods right now. Wear bright clothes.

This weekend we had a big, wet cold front blow through…it was about 40 degrees up in the hills. It was big shock after a hot summer.

Logger Humor...follow up

2009-08-26T11:47:00.000-07:00

Last October I tried to find this feature that I saw on Google Earth. It looks like a “5” die in the middle of the woods. I didn’t find the right road last fall and didn’t get a chance to get up there before the snow fell.

So this last weekend I took my nephew, who is on leave from duty in Iraq, on a two day trip to the Skookum area. First we wanted to find this clear cut that looks like a “5” die in the middle of the woods. Second we wanted to poke around the Skookum Meadows area.

Here's a map of the area:

We followed forest road 31 until we got found what we thought was the right road/trail, an old clear cut road (see the “X” on the map). That road/trail forked and we took the left side first. We followed it down to where we thought it would be close to the “die" and we stopped at the “1” on the map. We found a well used game trail and follow it a bit and thought we were on the right track, but we returned to our rig because we didn’t have our cameras, water, bear spray, etc. The number of bear, deer, and elk tracks on this trail was amazing. Fresh bear scat was everywhere. We even found some tracks that looked to have toes.

We went back to the fork in the road/trail and tried the right road. We parked at the “2” and decided to cut through the woods and clear cut from there. It took a while because the terrain was hilly, rugged, and littered with old tree falls, new growth, brush, and you name it.

We had to plow through small fir trees and brush a lot of the time, in fact the first trail at the “1” would have been easier, but we were committed to this route at this point. We broke through into the “5” die and it looked much different from the ground. In fact it would be virtually impossible from the ground to know what this looks like from the air.

This picture is taken from the "3" spot on the map, looking east:

Same spot, zoomed in on Mt Adams:

Same spot, looking north:

Notice the trees in the pictures that are stripped of branches and look like tall poles? They all have these orange markers on them:

Boundary Markers: these blue signs border the outer perimeter of the "square".

Remember I mentioned some toes? We returned to get picture of the imprints that seemed to have toes. These imprints were old and have had newer elk and bear prints over them, but we both think we saw at least four clear toe prints in them. Sure they could be human, but it was interesting finding them. We found two imprints with toes, and a third that was just an impression in moss. The toes were larger then mine or my nephew's, and the impression was about 16 inches long.

Will these prove anything? No. Was it fun finding them? Yes.

Toes (which of course didn't photograph well):

(Update 9/2: After talking with a couple folks, it's likely these are bear tracks. Bear can make human looking tracks in some situations.)

It's interesting that something urinated in the middle of the trail since our first visit, this "puddle" was still warm. This was about 10 feet from the above toe pictures.

Fresh Urine:

Then we drove on up to the Skookum meadows area to find a campsite for the night. We found out that there is active logging on the road into Skookum Meadows, FR 150. This was new since last fall.

Gates on FR150, going in towards Skookum Meadows

We found a spot on the hill to the south of the meadows to camp out on.

We set up camp and gathered wood.

View from the tent, looking east towards Sawtooth Mountain:

It got quite cold as the sun set and we cranked up a big fire, helped by the massive amounts of old trees lying at the top of the old clear cut we were camped out on. We did some tree knocking and yells, but other than two possible knocks I heard from the north at 9:30, we didn’t hear anything interesting during the night. It was quiet, in fact a couple hours past sunset, even the insects stopped making noise, it was absolutely dead quiet. It was a moonless night, so the stars were amazing, with the bands of the Milky Way clearly visible. At 12:30 we heard a couple coyotes howling off to the east, but they didn’t last long. It was refreshing to finally hear something; total silence is a bit unnerving in the dark. We hit the sack at 1:00.

Next day we packed up and headed out. We did some sight seeing up at Mt St Helens on Windy Ridge, then headed back home.

So we saw the “5” die in real life, scouted out the Skookum area a bit, and spent a cool quiet night out in the woods. Overall it was a great time.

Abbott Road

2009-08-19T00:26:00.000-07:00

I drove up Abbott Road from Estacada today. I’d read online and heard from friends that there was a washout. Since we (me and family) had driven into Squaw Mountain Lake last November, I was curious to see where the washout was.

I made it to Squaw Mountain Lake fine, about 2 miles past the lake I ran into the rough washed out part of the road, but I was able to keep going. At 4.5 miles past the lake I came up to a rock slide across the road that was too dangerous to attempt, especially with a huge drop off to the side. So I turned around there.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but the road is so narrow that I'd have to drive with the left wheels up on the bank. The road is just loose rocks, one bad move and it's over the right side, and down, down, down.

Back at the Lake I took a break and tried some Louisville Slugger against a tree. First set of three hits I got no response. Second set I heard a moan/moo sound from the far south west end of the meadow. I think it was an elk. Third set of wood knocks I didn’t hear anything. Then I tried some “yells”, and again I got the what-I-think-was elk moan/moo. It was fun because I’d never got a reaction from wood knocking.

Here is the "Lake" in the north side of the road.

Here's the meadow, on the south side.

Some Abbott Road history:
http://www.trailadvocate.org/stories/storyReader$241

A link that talks about Abbott Road.
http://www.portlandhikers.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1867

Fish Creek road is closed from BOTH ends

2009-08-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

Well Fish Creek road is closed from BOTH ends. I knew the front end was closed, but I thought I could get in from the back via Memaloose Road. I was wrong. The entire road was closed and stripped of its asphalt. The road washed out during the big floods here in 1996, and the asphalt was torn of in 1999. Also, any connecting roads from the adjacent valleys have been closed off (explaining why I couldn’t get to Skookum Lake via Indian Henry Road). So the entire Fish Creek valley has been closed off to protect fish habitats. So I’m pretty sure there is NO way to drive into Skookum Lake anymore. It has to be hiked into, or maybe a motorcycle would make it.

I did make it to the back side of Fish Creek road and found its “end” point. The road is blocked:

And torn up.

This area is about 20 miles from anything, it's was very still and quiet back in there, also very beautiful.

Lot's of tree breaks back in there. These are breaks, not "twists", so I'm sure they are weather related, likely snow load breakage.

I found an updated Forest Service map, here's a scan of the area:

The Fish Creek Valley is mostly all wilderness now, in that it has no roads into it.

Still trying to get to Skookum

2009-08-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

I drove up Memaloose road today. Some one suggested I try it since it’s a “gateway” to lots of other roads. I think I got going the right way, but my gps isn't great for forest roads and I ended up mixed up and "lost", in that I didn't know which road I was on (since most of the marker signs are long gone). After driving around a while I ended up coming out on road 45 in the town of Dodge.

Now that I’m home, checking the map I think I turned right on 4540 instead of left on 4540. I'll play more on Memaloose Road now that I know about it.

One thing’s for sure, it’s dusty up there. Hot, dusty, and dry. I didn’t see any running water in the creeks. Not like late May when the creeks were running strong.

The Road to Skookum

2009-07-23T20:16:00.000-07:00

The Road to Skookum Lake continues to be elusive. The original road, Fish Creek Road, washed out a couple years ago and won’t be rebuilt, per a ranger I talked with. This week I tried some of the roads that branch off Fish Creek Road and those all seem to dead end or loop around.

Then I tried coming in from Sandstone road, aka, Indian Henry campground road, I'd tried twice in May and had been stopped by snow. This weekend we made it in about 10 miles and were stopped by a landslide. No getting around this one, the right side drops off about 1500 feet.

It might just be impossible to drive into Skookum Lake anymore.

Vertical Sticks: Beavers?

2009-06-01T08:40:00.000-07:00

Have you even been driving 15 miles from the nearest paved road in thick dark woods and wondered, “what happens if I get stuck” or “what if my truck won’t start” or “what if I get injured”?

“Just why am I out here alone?”

I had this thought while driving out in the middle of the woods alone late yesterday afternoon trying to get to Skookum Lake, Oregon. It’s one of several unnerving thoughts I get when I’m out alone. It’s OK when the sun is out and it’s bright, but as the sun’s rays descend and the deep shadows creep across the Clackamas River valley, I start to question my sanity.

I drove back into the area where I “thought” I saw a possible foot print last week. There were two reasons I returned there; 1) the possible footprint, and 2) when looking through pictures, I noticed an odd pattern of vertical sticks that none of us saw when we were there last week.

Well, I didn’t see any tracks other then what I think were ours from last week, but I did find the stick pattern. It looks weird, several sticks placed neatly vertical. I’d assume it’s either natural or maybe this is how beavers start dams.

Picture from last week:

From yesterday:

Camping

2009-05-26T16:51:00.000-07:00

Well we had a great time at Indian Henry Campground. The weather was perfect, sunny and in the 70's. Bits of hiking, lots of camp fires, walks around the campground, and the usual camping stuff.

We tried to drive up to Skookum Lake via the road past Indian Henry campground, NF Road 4620, but ran into snow at ~3500 feet. It wasn't solid snow, but a large drift that hadn't melted yet. Plus there were a bazillion boulders (OK, big rocks) in the road that I had to get out and move. After a while that gets old. There are a lot of beaver dams and low lying swampy areas up 4620, much different than the roads on the east side of the Clackamas River that seem to be drier. We stopped at one spot in the road where a stream parallels the road (about 6 miles up the road from Indian Henry). There was a large area of silt along the stream bed and I saw what looked like a ball of a foot and large toe impression, but could have been anything really. You think I would have taken a picture...at the time I didn't think it worth bothering, but later I hit myself in the head for not doing it...digital is free after all. I didn't see any other sign of any large footed creatures.

The next day we drove up to Timothy Lake, which had just opened that weekend. It was nice, but the water was cold (when isn't it). The road to Clackamas Lake was being plowed, so we couldn't explore that direction much.

Stream along 4620.

Nehalem River: Feb 14, 2009

2009-02-14T14:50:00.000-08:00

I took a drive alongside the Nehalem River today. We made it about 13 miles down Foss Road (off of Highway 26) and stopped because the bridge at Salmonberry River was washed out. This is still about 25 miles from the end of the river at Nehalem Bay. I checked on the internet and found out the bridge washed out during a big storm in December 2007 and the county has no plans (or money) to rebuild.

I didn’t find anything unusual on the trip, just lots of human and dog tracks. Mostly I was scouting for places to camp out later this summer. There is a lot of fresh logging along the ridges above the river.

Here are some pictures of the washed out bridge.

Skookum Lake: Feb 1, 2009

2009-02-01T14:47:00.000-08:00

Tried to drive into Skookum Lake yesterday. The main roads (54 and 5420) were blocked off and the secondary route (5410) became too snowy and slippery after about 3 miles, not even close to the lake. There’s been a lot of snow melt since the big storms last month, but there is still a lot up there. Guess I’ll have to wait until summer.

This is the Skookum Lake outside Estacada, not the one in the coast range.

Squaw Mountain Lake: Nov, 15 2008

2008-11-15T14:37:00.000-08:00

We finally got a break from the rains and it was bright and sunny yesterday. We drove out to Squaw Mountain Lake, which is about 14 miles above Highway 224, outside of Estacada. We didn't see any signs of life, no elk tracks, no bear racks, no deer track, no tracks of any kind other than dirt bikes. There was lots of mud puddles and muddy areas, but no "you know who" tracks.

Forest Road 4410 is in rough shape, with lots of fresh washouts. Much more rain like last week and parts of that road will be washed out and impassable. I drive a big quad cab full size 4x4 and made it through to the lake just fine, but we couldn't get past the lake. It would take a better 4x4, to get through past the lake. I must say it's very remote out there, that lake is miles from anything and anyone (other than dirt bikes).

Logger Humor? Sept 24, 2008

2008-10-24T15:56:00.000-07:00

I was looking around the Skookum Meadows area online and saw this pattern in a forest clear cut. Surely, there is an explanation for this pattern...but it just looks like bizarre logger humor. Like some one really likes to roll a "5" with the dice.

This location is just due west of Curly Creek road and Meadow Creek Road (also known as Wind River Road) above Stevenson, Washington. Type those parameters into mapquest, go to the intersection of those roads, pan due west, and...BOOM! there is the most odd clear cut I've ever seen.

This is a few miles southwest-ish of Skookum Meadows.

I enjoyed a bit of the beautiful warm sunny fall weather and I drove up to Skookum Meadows area today. There were hunters EVERYWHERE. Every time I stopped to poke around I'd hear rifles going off. I can't imagine any large North American Apes were around the area today.

On the way back down I tried to drive into the area where the "dice" clear cut is. I got close, in fact I was one road over, but the road I was on, NF 3050, ended. Next time I think I know which road to take, but it was getting dark and I headed home. Maybe next year I can get back up there.

Mt. St. Helens was beautiful today!.

Gifford Pinchot National Forest; August 15, 2008

2008-09-15T15:50:00.000-07:00

We took a family outing drive up into Gifford Pinchot National forest today. Up National Forest Road 23 (just west of Mt Adams) to NFR 90, then down through NFR 88 and through a bunch of smaller roads around the Skookum Meadows area. Saw many bow hunters.

We did a bit of hiking at the water fall near the intersection of NFR 23 and 90 (I forget the name of the waterfall) and man, I gotta say those woods are DENSE. You could hide an army in there and not see them. The woods have a much different feel to them than the Mt Hood forest just a 100 or so miles to the south.

Table Rock Wilderness Info

2008-09-01T14:29:00.000-07:00

I little more abut the Table Rock area. There are several places in the PNW called Table Rock, this is the one I went to.

Table Rock Wilderness was designated a part of the National Wilderness System in 1984. It is the last large area-6,028 acres-of pristine forest land in the Molalla River drainage. Its steep, rugged terrain, towering basalt cliffs, spectacular vistas, brilliant wildflowers, diverse wildlife, and unique history combine to create a distinctive wilderness experience.

Directions to Table Rock Wilderness
The Table Rock Wilderness is located 19 miles southeast of the city of Molalla (SE of Portland). From the east side of Molalla, follow signs to Feyrer Park. Cross the river and turn right, following signs to Dickey Prairie. Continue south on Dickey Prairie Road about 4 miles past Dickey Prairie Store (last chance for supplies and public telephone). Turn right onto the Molalla Forest Road and cross Glen Avon Bridge. Travel south 12 miles along the paved and winding Molalla River Road to the junction of the Middle Fork and Copper Creek Roads (where the pavement ends). A right turn leads to the Old Bridge Trail head, immediately past the bridge and the Rooster Rock Road (a left turn mile up the Copper Creek Road) which accesses the old trails to the historic Peachuck Lookout.

More Table Rock Info

Table Rock: August 31, 2008

2008-08-31T14:13:00.000-07:00

I took my family for a hike at Table Rock in the Table Rock Wilderness today. We hiked up the trail maybe 1 mile and my oldest daughter (in the lead) says "do you smell skunk?", and just then we all smelled it, a skunky-cabbage smell. I suddenly felt uneasy, but I didn't see or hear anything and thought nothing more of it.

We continued on for a while. It started to rain harder and I turned around with my youngest daughter (who is 5) while my wife and oldest daughter (8 years old) continued on. On the way down, in about the same area were we smelled the skunk smell, I smelt a strong fecal smell and I looked around but couldn't see anything in the dense brush on that part of the trail. I heard a loud crash about 30 feet off to the right (downhill) of the trail. It sounded like something large rolling around in twigs and branches, it didn't sound like footsteps and it lasted about 10 seconds.

I was starting to really wonder if we were about to have an encounter of some sort. As I continued down with my daughter I heard very faint twig snapping sounds off in the brush, paralleling our trail. Maybe it was footsteps, maybe it was the wind, but it ended after a couple minutes. No more odd sounds or smells. The uneasy feeling stayed with me until we got down to the trail that cuts off around the 1996 landslide, then the uneasy feeling simply left.

My wife and oldest were about 60 minutes behind us getting to the truck, she didn't say anything about any odd things happening and I didn't bring it up at the time. Later, at home, I talked with my wife and she said she felt uneasy where she turned around (at the "old" trail head further up the trail), but not at the other parts.

I'm sure it was mostly my over active imagination, but even my wife remarked that that trail is sort of spooky. We've hiked many trails around the PNW, I've never had such a weird creepy feeling like I did today.