This weekend's trip was up Canyon Creek in Gifford Pinchot National Forest.  It was a weird trip.  The roads up Canyon creek don't really go anywhere, they drive up through a deep narrow dark canyon and sort of peter out.

I started east of Amboy on NF54.  Here's a view from Canyon Creek campground.  It's a beautiful spot, although dark and chilly in mid afternoon as it seems the sun never shines down in this deep canyon.


At the turn off to road NF37 from NF54 here is a sign with details about Maureen Kelly who disappeared from this location last summer and no sign of her has been found apparently.  Very sad.



I worked my way up road 37 as far as I could go and turned around at a talus slope.  Here's a video of the turn around point on NF37.

It turned out to be white knuckle ride. You can see a washout at 0:34 seconds, the view out my side window was straight down about 400 feet. Soon after that I rounded the corner and decided to stop as the road turned into a goat trail across a talus slope. Not knowing what was beyond the talus slope, I decided to turn around at that point. I edited out a few minutes at the stopping point where I got out and checked out the road on foot. You can see what fun it is turning around on a trial that's not much wider than the Jeep is. At 2:35 you can see the washout as I drive past it on the way down.

I thought this song from the classic movie "Night of the Comet" was fitting.



Then I drove back down to NF37 and turned onto NF38, hoping to make it up over the hills and down into the area near Sunset Falls, but this time I was stopped by snow.  Here is a view looking back down the valley from road 38.