Nesmith Point more like Nesmith Disappoint

Well they can't all be winners.

The Summit of Nesmith Point

Nesmith Point is a very high point on the edge of the Yeon Mountain area, which is a really cool area filled with steep canyons and large rock pillars. Nesmith is mostly known in Oregon hiker circles as a "training" hike for mountain climbers. The view from the top isn't all that special, and getting there is difficult. It's more about the work. Nesmith is the treadmill time you spend trying to get ready for better things. That's fine, because sometimes those moments can be enjoyable in their own right.

This doesn't bother me much in most things. Sometimes it's about the journey and not the endpoint. As it turns out, Nesmith Point is a shitty, boring journey.

Nesmith has no charm. It's just steep climbing through thick jungle on rocks for 5 miles, then going back the same way. Even with lowered expectations I was pretty let down. Nesmith feels like a hike that should be amazing when you look at it on a map and consider it's route, but ends up tedious and unfun with little to no reward. Keeley was not with me for this hike, she wasn't feeling well and hung out by Elowah falls instead.

The Nesmith Disappoint (Which I will refer to it as henceforth) trail starts at the Elowah trailhead after maybe 50 feet. A sign points up. The trail goes up fairly gently for a little under a mile, meandering through the woods to reach the entrance point to Nesmith box canyon. The canyon is narrow and when you get views of it through the trees, pretty cool. But honestly for the next two miles you are constantly switchbacking (Some are barely 10 feet long) slowly, ever so slowly up the stupid mountain. It's boring and steep, the worst combination. Some of the steepest hikes I've done are also some of the most fun to do, being on ridges or scrambles. Nesmith is just cramped jungle switchbacks. The whole way.

Nesmith Point Trail

Average level of steep climbing in the canyon

Parts of the trail would be a nightmare to re-route if a landslide took it out.

Eventually you'll make it out of the canyon and the steep rocky walls and hit Corky's Corner, where the trail crests the rim and exits the canyon with a mild view of Waukena point across the way. From here, it's another half mile of climbing through brushy nothingness. It flattens out for a little while, but soon enough you are climbing again. Eventually you hit an old road and from here it's another 500 feet to the site of an old lookout and the "views".

The views aren't bad per say, they are just limited. There is no wide angle with panoramic options, it's a very select section of visible views down a landslide. You can wander around down past the top and get a few different angles, including one of St. Helens over Hardy Ridge and Beacon Rock and one looking east towards Portland and Larch Mtn, but nothing wide and open like most gorge viewpoints.

The Summit. Yeon Mtn in the lower left foreground, Silver Star Mtn far in the upper right distance

Survey marker at the top

An old outhouse by the summit. A lookout was once perched here, the outhouse is presumably a relic from that time. 

St. helens

Towards Portland

Larch Mountain

Yeon Mtn low foreground, Devil's rest as the little bump behind it, Coastal Mountains way in the distance

Stump with a cool hairdo

Hamilton and Table mountains

Now it's time to go back down that rocky, steep mess. My feet felt worse on mile 8 than they did at the end of last week's 15 mile mastery.

I'm glad I did it because I can mark it off my map, and that's about my only satisfaction. Nesmith Disappoint. You can get the conditioning this hike gives you in many other places in the gorge with much better experiences. Save this for a wet, overcast day so the heat doesn't get you and all you want is exercise.

The one pleasure I took from the hike was watching Beacon rock go from a huge sight to the size of a pebble.

Beacon Rock is a little over 800 feet high, Hardy Ridge almost 3000 feet. The second viewpoint is just under 3800 feet up

The trail to Nesmith

. 

Wauna Point Direct and Dublin Lake

About a month ago I did Franklin Ridge all by myself and temporarily went nuts. But the day I did that, I originally had a different idea. Wauna Point direct. I decided against it because it is supposed to be steep and perilous and I didn't want to do that in the rain. WELL THIS WEEKEND IT WASN'T RAINING.

Keeley was in Cleveland doing wedding related stuff so I was Han Solo Hiking. Probably a good thing, I never would have heard the end of it during the Tanner Cutoff section, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The "right" way to Wauna Point is going up service road 777 until the old Tanner Trailhead, taking the Tanner Butte trail up to the campsite, and taking the unmaintained trail down to the point. Well last time I did that, we met a couple of dudes coming up from a different way once we passed the campsite. They told me they came up via the service road, and that it was hard. File > Save > "Possible Wauna option for later" Save File? Yes. Now I have a couple of neurons dedicated to that fact.

So I had two goals. Climb up the Wauna direct trail, and see if I could get to Dublin Lake. If I could get to Dublin Lake I'd take the Tanner Cutoff trail back down for a loop. Spoiler alert: Success.

15 miles
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 4000 elevation gain
6:21 hours.
2 Water Bottles and a Granola Bar consumed

Not as fast as my Franklin Ridge masterpiece but I wasn't in a rush this time.

I started at Toothrock Trailhead to give myself more variety on ascent (Started at Wachella last time). After a short walk along the historic highway a small trail labeled "Tanner Butte" heads up to the right. This leads up to the Tanner Service road 777. From here I walked roughly a mile. But before the Tanner trailhead, there is a noticeable service road leading up and to the left. Here we go!

On the right you can see the power line service road heading up off off 777

The road is switchback hell. I lost count at 7. It just kept going. Up and back, up and back, I thought it would never end, but then it did, under a powerline tower. I listened to the electricity hum and then kept going. The road ended, but from here the path leads up the ridge, with no ambiguity (the ridge is 10 feet wide with certain injury on each side).

Powerline Meadow flowers at the top of the road

The trail gets hard now

It sucks, but it feels manageable. You do very steep ascents in spurts. Climb bullshit hard section, reach a crest, take a breather, pass through a small saddle, go up again. You do this roughly 4 times. It's not too bad if you take it on in short bursts, and there are some views along the way. Honestly it was a pretty good trail if you can handle the work. After the 4th or so steep section (Through a boulder climb) the trail starts to level out a bit as you reach the plateau. This is where the challenge becomes "Where the fuck is the trail". After things level out the trail just sort of vanishes, and it took me a couple of minutes to train my eyes to find it, but once I did, it was okay. I had to look for depressions in the plants since the trail is overgrown. Once I knew what to look for, I was fine. A quarter mile later, and I hit the Wauna Point trail. I skipped Wauna point, I didn't want to descend 600 feet and then climb it again.

View of Mt. Adams from the Wauna Direct trail

The Wauna Direct trail at the junction with Wauna Point trail. It's barely there, but it's easier to spot in person.

Table and Greenleaf peak from Wauna Direct

Made it to the campsite and set off up the Tanner Butte trail. For the next two miles you slowly climb from boring jungle to less boring alpine territory (The undergrowth is thick, then fades away, and next thing you know it's alpine grass and dirt). Just when I was getting sick of walking, I hit the junction with Tanner Cutoff. One tenth of a mile past that is the Dublin Lake junction. Why they didn't just make them meet at the same spot who knows.

The Tanner trail from the campsite starts in gorge jungle like this

And slowly over 2 miles turns into alpine forest like this

The sign at the Tanner Cutoff junction

Dublin Lake

Dublin Lake is a quick 400 foot bullshit slope to a small, beautiful pristine lake. I had it all to myself. Ate some granola, watched the salamanders float around the lake. I decided to perimeter walk the lake. Near the backside, where the lake feeds the stream, a short descent found me in a rocky opening with a view towards my previous week's conquest, Chinidere Mountain.

Dublin Lake

Salamander

Bird

Close up Salamander

Rhododendron Flower

Chinidere Mountain from below Dublin Lake

The lake was full of Salamanders

One last look at Dublin Lake

Then I climbed back up those stupid 400 feet, made my way back to the Tanner Cutoff junction, and headed down.

The Tanner Cutoff trail is a nightmare. It drops (or climbs, if you hate yourself even more and go uphill instead) 2500 feet of elevation in 3 miles. And the trail is not well maintained. In fact it was closer to forgotten than real. From the top, it starts out fine, heads down a ridge for a mile at stupidly steep levels, then takes a hard cut south and the switchbacks start. Roughly 18 switchbacks. The trail is very close to gone, easy to lose, and kinda dangerous. The switchback section has loose ground. The bottom 3rd of the trail is the worst for navigation. It's completely overgrown in parts, and I had to crouch to see under the mid-growth to find it. All around you are poison oak, stinging nettles, blackberry bushes, and Devils Club, making it a thorny hell.

Devils Club branches look like this

You cross a creek near the bottom as things level out. Then you hit the junction with the Moffett Creek trail heading southwest, hop the same creek again, and you hit the 777 service road. And the road, for the next 2 miles, is mostly a gentle uphill, because fuck you.

On the way back I saw a deer, who was kind enough to pose for me.

Service Road 777

Deer

The old Tanner tralhead on 777

After I finally got back to the early junctions, I took a brief detour on the 400 to link up a section of trail on my map, then took the 777 road all the way back to my car. I drank the water bottle which had been waiting for me, now very hot after sitting in the car all day.

I don't feel any worse than I did after Franklin Ridge (In fact I feel better) so that's pretty rad. This is the longest day hike I have ever done.

Chinidere and Tomlike. Yes there is a mountain named Tomlike.

Well, best hike of the year so far nailed down.

Mt. Hood and Mt. Jefferson from Chinidere mtn

Wahtum Lake is a major landmark in the Mark O'Hatfield wilderness. It is just under halfway between the Columbia Gorge and Mt. Hood (Closer to the gorge) on an area called Waucoma Ridge. It serves as the genesis of Eagle Creek (At least the east fork that feeds Tunnel Falls). It's also a major stop on the Pacific Crest trail, probably the final good campsite before PCT hikers reach the gorge.  Because of its location, there is no easy way to access it. Either you hike in an uncomfortable distance (at least 13 miles from the Eagle Creek trailhead, and similar results for the Herman Creek trailhead), or you take a long winding mountain drive. It's only accessible from Hood River, so you have to drive all the way from Portland to Hood River, then head back southwest into the mountains. At minimum 1:30 driving time, and that's not exactly by following the speed limit.

Both these factors have kept me away from it so far, despite one particular hike being on my "Must do" radar for years: Chinidere Mtn. I just never wanted to drive or hike that far in. But, thanks to a post by the TravelPortland instagram, Keeley found out about it and started bugging me. So we put it on our schedule and made plans.

The thing is, Chinidere Mtn is like a 4 mile hike with barely over 1,000 feet of gain if you take the long route. That's cake for us. I didn't want to drive 4 total hours for a hike that would take us 2 hours. I want bang for my buck, damnit. I want to spend more time in nature then I do in the car. Well, as it turns out, Wahtum is a major access point for a bunch of trails, and there are other hikes in the area. Namely, one Tomlike Mountain. Tomlike summit from the trailhead is 6 miles. 6+4 is a 10 mile hike. But since both hikes are listed everywhere separately, doing both in one loop using the cutoff trails behind the lake cuts off several of those miles. So our plan was do Tomlike, then Chinidere, then go home. That should get enough nature to offset the drive.

The drive is long but beautiful. From Hood River into the mountains you get constant looks at a looming and beautiful Mt. Hood. The road to reach Wahtum is paved the entire way, not too steep, and wide enough that you won't see a car coming the other direction and panic. Basically, it's the best deep mountain road I've driven (Fuck you, Silver Star Mountain). The trailhead/campground comes up very suddenly and doesn't have a lot of parking space.

This is when the clusterfuck of Wathum Lake shows itself. The area has a ton of trails, and the signage is not very good. There were about 5 ways out of the campground and maybe two had vague signs. I quickly abandoned the plan of doing Tomlike (the harder hike) first, and decided we should do Chinidere first, since that was the big reason we came, then decide on Tomlike after we finished.

The mess of trails around Wahtum Lake

From the Trailhead we took the "Wathum Express Trail", which was just 200 wooden steps right down the slope to the lake. We took in the wonderful lake views, then headed westward. Passed the PCT junction, then passed the Eagle Creek trail junction. The signs in this area were actually good. Then we got lost in a small campsite looking for the Chinidere cutoff shortcut, and found out that the trail actually crossed the lake, and to do so we had to carefully walk over logs on a logjam. Fun start.

The cutoff went steeply up the mountain side, featured one unlabeled junction for confusion, then reached the PCT on the north side of the lake. From here it was a quick jaunt west, then up the final 500 feet or so of Chinidere. About 2/3rds of the way up a spur trail cuts off to the left, and we took it, because WOW VIEWS.

Hood and Jefferson from Chinidere

Mt. Hood from the summit of Chinidere

Keeley sits on a rock looking at Mt. Hood

The spur trail then scrambled up Chinidere to the summit. This wasn't the official ascent, and was very rocky/probably dangerous. But the views: Spectacular. Maybe the best in the area. I dare say it was even better than Silver Star mtn. Things I could see from the summit:

Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Adams.
Tanner Butte, The Benson Plateau, the Eagle and Herman Creek canyons, Silver Star mountain, Table Mountain, Mt. Defiance, Larch Mountain, Indian Mountain, Green Point Mountain, Wauna Point, and a ton of shit I probably can't recognize on sight yet. Also, Tomlike Mountain, which looked uncomfortably far away.

Hood

The Benson Plateau and Mt. St. helens in clouds

Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams

Mt. Defiance

Mt. Adams looms over Tomlike Mountain in the foreground

The Benson is very flat

Silver Star Mountain (Way in the middle right distance) and Wauna Point (Middle right foreground)

Wildflowers on Chinidere

Table Mountain looks small from here

Tanner Butte

Hoodwinked

Pose

One final view heading back down

We chilled for a while, but Chinidere is popular, so the amount of people got us off the summit fairly quick. We had barely done 2 miles at this point, we felt good. I re-checked the map, and Tomlike looked and felt do-able. So we went for it. We reached the PCT/Chinidere junction, passed the Cutoff trail and stayed on the PCT heading east around the lake. Then got off the PCT and stayed left. Then a junction with the Herman Creek trail came up...sooner than I expected. I checked the map. This should be where the Tomlike trail heads north, but I saw no trail. We decided to keep going, massively confused (Spoiler alert: this was a shortcut junction to the Rainy Lake trail, and is not on google/my map)

Paintbrush

Rocky Meadow and Tanner Butte

Beargrass

After a mile of wandering down the beautiful and mostly flat alpine Herman Creek trail, we hit the junction with Tomlike (for real this time). Tomlike Mountain is not a true mountain, more of a high point on Woolly Horn Ridge. It is brushy AND exposed, very rocky, and looks practically identical on ascent to Hardy Ridge. Getting up Tomlike was less of a physically demanding challenge (It's actually shorter than Chinidere by 100 feet) but it is a mild challenge of Navigation. The trail is not official, so it's in rougher shape. The "trail" bounds through boulder fields and pine brush. It's hard to find where to walk, but it's easy to stay on track, since you are on a narrow ridge crest with a big drop off to the right side the whole time, making orientating yourself easier. After you get through the saddle and start the actual ascent, you also have to navigate over a talus field, taking care on the loose rocks.

The majesty of Mud Lake

Tomlike Mountain from the saddle

Tomlike doesn't have as good a view from the summit as Chinidere, but I do think it has a better view of Mt. Hood, perfectly framed in the Waucoma Ridge saddle to the south. Honestly, this may have been the best part of the hike. The weird navigation to get here, the still amazing view, and the distinct lack of other people (Compared to Chinidere at least) made this a more special place.

Keeley and the Hood

Tiny Keeley

Facing due South

Sassy pose

I was pointing out an Osprey

Heading back

Those little Beargrass have a killer view

Keeley on the summit

We took another trail called the "anthill" trail directly back to the parking lot. 7 miles, not even 2,000 feet of gain, and 4:30 hours of glorious nature. Worth it. Best hike of the year thus far. We may have to return here so we can hike Indian Mountain.

Chinidere's unassuming lump with Tanner Butte behind it

Wahtum lake and Chinidere

The best "view" of Wahtum lake you get, from the Anthill trail

One final wow from the Anthill trail

Starting at the little notch on the bottom, we went clockwise.