A Very Busy Weekend: Wyeth, Shellrock, and Casey Creek

This trip report is actually 3!

SATURDAY, JULY 16

Last weekend me and Keeley wanted to hike Ruckel Ridge, but we got up too late and Eagle Creek was a complete mob scene with no parking. We bailed and went to Herman Creek, intending to do Indian Point again. No dice, also a mob scene. So I had to go to plan C: Wyeth Trailhead. Maybe we could do Shellrock Mountain or something. Or just do Gorton Creek Falls again. Last time I ended up here was because of failed plans anyway.

Well long story short we ended up doing the connection 400 trail from Wyeth to Herman Creek. It's 4 miles of the gentlest climbing (only 1000 feet of gain the whole way) but honestly it's pretty boring. It's just through the woods with maybe 4 Talus field crossings with some views to Wind Mountain and some neat rock formations. The final mile to Herman Creek was horribly boring, and the day was quite hot. I took a few pictures but never bothered with a trip report because it wasn't that exciting. I got to cross it off on my map though.

View of the talus field and castle tower rock formation that will be important later

Wind mountain from the Herman-Wyeth trail

A bridge over Gorton Creek

SATURDAY, JULY 23
Keeley is gone in Winnipeg for business so I had the weekend to myself. Therefore, I did silly stuff. Sadly, this day was mostly a failure, but let me back up.

I drove back to Wyeth. Even parked in the same spot. My goal was two-fold: explore Shellrock Mountain, but before that, try to climb one of the talus fields to check out if a rock promontory was accessible. In the third talus field on the Herman-Wyeth hike, a large castle tower like rock stands guard dramatically. It's high up, but it looks close enough. I climbed the talus field, which was more fun that strenuous. Sadly at the top things got too steep, covered in poison oak, and through the trees it looked like the rock cliff did not have an accessible backside. So I went back down. Shellrock time.

Mt. Rainier peeking over the clouds

The treeline at the top of the talus

Carson, WA, built on an old lava flow obviously seen from this position

The talus field I climbed and the castle tower from the trail

Shellrock Mountain is Wind Mountain's lesser twin. Literally. They used to be the same mountain, then the Columbia and the missuloa floods punched a hole through them. Now they stand as deteriorating sentinels on either side of the river. If you can actually see both at the same time it's pretty neat, but Shellrock is easy to overlook. Wind Mountain gets the flair because it stands tall and alone opposite the river in dramatic fashion, but Shellrock blends into the Oregon side and isn't accessible by conventional means. Shellrock has no official trail. What it does have is some power line access roads and trails and an old piece of historic highway on the east flank. The power line trails were my goal. I wanted to summit Shelly, but I would have been happy just to circumvent it. Sadly I accomplished neither.

Getting to Shellrock requires one of two ways: park on the shoulder of the highway past the landslide retaining wall and hike up the historic old road to the talus switchbacks and then climb the ridge to the summit, or park at Wyeth and hike along the powerlines for 2 miles to reach the west flank. I didn't want to park off the highway as that sounded...iffy, so I went to the powerlines from Wyeth.

I hiked the very start of the Wyeth trail (Which climbs a nearby ridge, and I haven't done that hike yet), then turned off on the powerline road. Crossed Harphan Creek, and for the next 2 miles was just wandering under the powerlines. It's not dull, you get a fantastic view of Shelly on the way, one of the few excellent views of the mountain in the gorge. The approach makes it look badass and formidable while Wind Mountain looks kinda lame.

Beginning the approach 

Shelly gets closer

The formidable cliffs of the summit

Once you reach the base of the mountain, things get rough. The entire front of Shellrock is loose talus. Like, the whole thing. The mountain is falling away. The trail follows the powerlines across the north face of the talus field, and the talus field is basically 1500 feet high. It's...daunting. As I ascended the powerline slope, I finally understood why no official trail has been made here. It's legitimately dangerous. I made it roughly 1/4th of the way around the north face, and then I had to admit it to myself: I was too nervous. The exposure, the questionable footing (Talus is basically lose rock), the winds and the fact that I was alone all compounded and I chickened out. Any one of those things not there and I would have been fine, but this was just a wee bit too much. If I slipped down the slope, there was a good chance I'd start an avalanche and get seriously hurt or die. Maybe I psyched myself out a bit, but I turned back.

Facing west towards Wyeth

Dog Mountain from the Shelly trail

Table and Greenleaf in the backgroud

Carson lava flow

Your footing this entire time

The way down should I fall

The way back, I came up from the powerline clearing

Wind Mountain

One last look back

defeated but not ready to give up, I tried something else. The base of the landslide area followed a treeline up. I might be able to make the summit by following the treeline up on the edge of the landslides. Here the rocks were bigger, and had moss covering them, making significantly more stable footing. I was aiming for a gully type section on the upper Shellrock ridge. if i could make the ridge, I could summit and come back down. Things went fine for a while, but then it got too step and the footing got loose. I had to admit defeat. I walked back, dejected. I decided to visit Gorton Creek falls one more time anyway just to make sure the entire day wasn't a failure.

Shellrock may still yet be tamed, I can still try the highway approach. I scouted the route on the way back and the parking shouldn't be as scary as first thought. But for now, Shelly was too hard a mistress.

Block of basalt

Shellrock from the powerlines, see the "trail"

Shelly

One final glance at Shellrock

Gorton Creek Falls

SUNDAY JULY 24
Maybe I just wanted to prove to myself I was still a badass hiker after chickening out on Shellrock, or maybe I'm just a masochist. I chose Casey Creek as my goal. After Shelly didn't sap any of my energy, I was hungry for satisfaction. I'm also still "training" to climb a volcano. So why not Casey Creek?

Casey Creek is a cutoff trail, not dissimilar to the Tanner Creek cutoff trail from my 16 mile Dublin Lake hike a month ago. It climbs from a low trail to the top of the ridge. But I'll get to that.

I parked at Herman Creek and took the trail up. One mile in, you come to Herman Camp. To the left, the 400 trail (That I took in the first entry in this post) terminates. Straight is the Gorton Creek trail, the usual way to Indian Point. Right is the Herman Creek Trail, which goes for literally miles and miles all the way to Wahtum Lake (I was on the other end of it for Tomlike Mountain). Just on the Herman Creek trail, the Nick Eaton trail branches up. I stayed right and south. I had to follow Herman Creek for a while. 2.5 miles, to be exact.

Herman Creek is mostly a dull trail for these few miles, outside one completely out of nowhere gets no fanfare somehow spectacular waterfall. It's an amazing waterfall, I can't believe nobody talks about it. It's got to be over 100 feet high.

The unnamed falls

The trail eventually finds Casey Camp and the base of the Casey Creek trail. Now the fun begins, 3.5 miles in. Casey Camp is located at 1500 feet elevation. Nick Eaton Ridge at the top of the Casey Creek (CC) trail is 4000 feet. It's two miles up. That's right, Casey Creek is 2500 feet of climbing in two miles. 1250 feet per mile average. It's the equivalent of climbing all Dog Mountain in 1.5 less miles, after you've already walked 3.5 miles and 1000 feet to get here. This is the steepest thing I've ever tackled, and it would be a great test for my fitness.

I made it!

And it was miserable! Casey Creek is just as horrible as advertised! But I made it! About one and a half hours later, I made it two miles up that piece of shit.

The trail starts strongly, with several big blowdowns covering the trail. Then it begins the climb. First, a lot of steep switchbacks. Then, it gains the ridgeline and trudges up that for a while, passes through a nice meadow, and then starts to climb on the side of the ridge again. Then it regains the ridge in a false summit sort of way as things level out more than usual, then joke's on you you still have over half a mile to go. I felt terrible and felt like I was stopping to breathe every 30 seconds. But I couldn't stop half the time, because it was too steep to stand still. I had to find mildly less steep parts to take breathers on. Finally, I saw blue through the trees ahead of me and I knew the ridge was close. I spent the last 100 feet climbing through the power of rage, yelling loudly to no one that Casey Creek could go violate itself in all sort of interesting ways. Then I topped off, loudly screamed I'M DONE and sat on a rock to drink some water and eat a snack.

The bottom junction with Casey Creek (right) from Herman Creek (left)

Mt. Defiance from the summit of Nick Eaton

Mt. Adams from the top of Nick Eaton Ridge

Now I had two choices. Go north for 1.5 miles, hit the ridge cutoff trail, take a quick 1.5 mile detour to see Deadwood camp, then do Indian Point, and go home via Gorton Creek. OR...go south 1 mile on the ridge, hit the very end of the Gorton Creek trail, and take Gorton creek 2.6 miles back to Indian Point, and then another 2.6 back to Herman Camp and then 1 mile to the car. That route would add a minimum of two miles. Guess what I did? I did the bad one.

Nick Eaton ridge, after the nightmare of Casey Creek, was a wonderful, beautiful gentle stroll. 1 mile later and 100 feet lower, I hit the junction and went north. This section of Gorton Creek is a mess. It's overgrown and falling down the hill in sections. It's like this for 2.6 miles in random spurts. Thankfully, to break up the monotony, there are a few landslide crossings with great views. After following what I'm going to call Gorton Creek Ridge for some time, the trail switchbacks into Grays creek basin , hits deadwood camp, and then follows a mostly level path west till it hits the Indian Point junction. I went down to Indian Point.

Landslide view of Mt Adams

Mt. Adams

Nick Eaton ridge landslide from Gorton Creek trail

Deadwood Camp

I feel confident calling Indian Point my favorite viewpoint in the gorge. There are lots of places with incredible views. Table Mountain sees the most. Dog Mountain has the flowers, but a mostly disappointing view west because of the angle of the river. Wauna Point was great, but almost too high. Mitchell Point is the only one that comes close. Something about Indian Point is magical. The way you feel perched like an eagle looking over your domain to the east, seeing straight down the river. You see Dog Mountain, looking quaint. Augspurger behind it. You can see way into washington and the Columbia plateau. A little bit of Table mountain to the northwest, and Mt. Adams looms quietly to the north. Best of all, it's the best spot to appreciate the "wind and shelly twin towers". From here you can really see how they stand guard on the river like that scene in the first Lord of the Rings with the two big statues. No picture captures the grand scale. It's perfect. I wish there was more view to the west, but instead you get a crazy big rock cliff face to admire.

Adams

Pano east

Adams

Wind Mountain

Shellrock Mountain

Dog Mtn

The castle tower

Indian Point

From there is was just a quiet walk home with hurting limbs to keep me company. I didn't see a single person between Nick Eaton Falls and Indian Point, which meant I was alone for 8.5 miles. Pretty crazy. This past week, with the stairs and hikes, have added up to 70 miles of walking. 70 miles.

I hope I lost at least a little weight from that.