Please Tell Me Wyeth (trail)

THE PLAN:

Shit I need a plan I am literally walking out the door.

THE PLAN, UPDATED:
I'm gonna go to Toothrock Trailhead and take an easy but long stroll up the power line road to check out upper Tanner Creek Wait...it's like 80 degrees and sunny, the trail is exposed, and I don't have sunscreen, maybe that's a bad idea.

THE PLAN 3, RETURN OF THE PLAN:
Take Herman Creek trail up Nick Eaton Ridge, check off a couple sections I haven't marked off my map check. Oh shit the Parking lot is full why did I leave at 10:30.

4 PLAN 4 FOURIOUS: 
Fuck it, let's go up the Wyeth trail.

THE GOAL:

See if I can reach North Lake.

THE TRIP:

I did not reach North Lake.

The Wyeth Trail is a trail from the Wyeth Trailhead & Campground that leads up Wyeth ridge eventually to a cluster of trails and things around Green Point Mountain. North Lake, which lies on the east flank, is usually the main goal of anyone going up Wyeth. There really isn't anything else to do off of the Wyeth trail unless you want to climb flanking routes that don't have trails and probably have bears.

The trail starts at Gorton Creek, takes a quick spin up the Wyeth spur ridge under the powerlines, crosses Harphan Creek, then plunges into the woods and gets right to the bullshit.

The Wyeth Trail is one of those "Big climbs in the woods" trails, like Nesmith Point. A steep, difficult hike with little to no payoff that is mostly used for people who are training to climb better mountains. In fact the trail feels very much like Nesmith Point, only somehow even worse. It starts really bad. Past Harphan creek the trail plunges into the woods and immediately starts climbing up long, steep switchbacks.

I felt like shit almost immediately on the hills. I didn't eat a big meal the day before or a substantial breakfast so I was under-fueled (Remember this wasn't what I planned to do today). It was 11:30 and already about 70 degrees. I was hoping the extra cold and wet winter would give us a mild summer, but lol nope I guess not. It should not be hitting 80 in May, ugh. So it was hot and I felt bad. I made it about a mile in, sat on a nice big rock, and contemplated my life.

After a 10 minute break of feeling incredibly pathetic about myself I decided to keep going for the moment. I had seen another trip report that had a decent viewpoint halfway up the trail or so, maybe I could hit that and turn around. At this point I was driven up the hill entirely by a desire to not feel pathetic.

As if the hiking gods heard my dying prayers, the trail eases up after the first mile. It continues to switchback uphill, but after the steepness of mile 1 it feels almost flat. The trail hugs a steep cliff side in merciful shade for a while until it turns a corner and heads upstream for a while.

After some distance, the trail hits a creek, and turns uphill the opposite way. Then it hits the stream again, and again switchbacks away. Like the trail is a shy boy at a dance trying to hit on the stream but can't make a damn move. The trail crosses the stream on approach #3.

Right after the stream crossing the viewpoint hits. There is a corner of a hanging meadow with a semi-okay view, but if you bushwhack 20 feet down the ridge everything opens up. 

Mt. St. Helens looms over Carson, WA

Silver Star Mt. over the corner of Deadwood Point

Deadwood Point

semi-satisfied selfie

Flowers in the open meadow on Wyeth

After the viewpoint I was still feeling okay thanks to the trail easing up, so I kept going. My next goal would be the junction at the top of Wyeth ridge that splits off to North Lake. The trail switchbacks up the ridge some more, with a few more open meadow views (None as good as the first one). The trail after the viewpoint starts to be bullshit again. The steepness sneaks in slowly, but soon the climb returns. After you hit the final open meadow, everything sucks again for at least another 10 switchbacks in hot, boring woods. 

Finally, mercifully, the trail levels out on the ridgeline. Not long after, you hit the junction. Up goes to Green Point Mountain & more, left goes to North Lake, about another mile. I felt...okay. Like I could do it. However, I stood no chance, because between me and North Lake, on the trail, was the one thing I really didn't want to see. 

IM NOT MELTINNNNG, NOT MEEEEEEEELTINGGGG

Yup, snow was still here. Apparently 3,900 feet is the current snowline. I did not want to stumble and smush over a hard to see trail I've never done before for another mile. So I turned around.

The trip back sucked. I was slightly dehydrated (conserving water on purpose. Two 32 oz bottles is usually enough, but this heat was making it tough). The trail is steep downhill too, which is bad for knees and hips of tired people who just want to be home.

I snapped a few pics on the way back down in-between sessions of wanting to just fall down and see what rolling got me. I haven't felt this bad since Bullshit Mountain.

From the top of the biggest hanging meadow

Near Harphan Creek on the way home, I saw a snake! I see Garter Snakes all the time (Saw one last week on Eagle Creek, in fact) but this was new! It looks like a Ring-Necked Snake after my research. It wouldn't move so I poked it with my stick until it did. It was like a foot long. Neat.

On the way down, out of curiosity, I counted the switchbacks. 37 of them. Ugh. Finally back in the car I did something I'm not proud of: I stopped at a McDonalds drive-through just so I could get food and a drink. It was my first McDonalds in over 5 years and it served as a solid reminder why I stopped eating fast food burgers. It gave me the strength to get back, but it was bad food. Not even the fries were as good as I remember. 

RESULTS:

Probably just over 8 miles, roughly 3,800 elevation gain. I may return one day, in better shape, better prepared, to conquer North Lake. 

Skoonichuk Falls

So this weekend I was free, but Keeley wasn't (a friend was in town and they decided to go do coding stuff and whatnot) so it was hike time to me. I didn't feel like going out and murdering my legs again, maybe wait till Memorial Day weekend for the next big one. So I invited a friend from work out who has never seen Eagle Creek for an mild hike to pass the time.

This was my 6th time on the Eagle Creek trail, so there isn't much to say that hasn't been said already in earlier posts. It's a great hike, it's busy as hell (The parking was already garbage by 9:30 am), and it's pretty easy. But, since I've done it 6 times (To varying distances) there wasn't much to say or take pictures of till one very important section.

The trail is clear at this point, but it did indeed suffer some damage this winter. Several trees had clearly gone over, I saw evidence of multiple small landslides, and the trail had clearly been re-routed over some slides a few times. The most meaningful change was that the Metlako Falls viewpoint (pictured below) no longer exists. It is gone. Bye bye. It fell into the creek at some point this winter and the trail to it is now gone. I guess Metlako falls is shy because no one can see it anymore.

This view of Metlako Falls is dead now, RIP.

Punchbowl falls is now overgrown at the top so what used to be a stellar view is now mostly obscured by trees. Shame too, because it's just going to drive the dumb tourists out onto dangerous further cliffs that are more dangerous to see it. I saw several side pathways that used to be tough to see now prominently used, so it's only a matter of time before some dumbass dies and ruins it for everyone.

 Me and Pete made it to High Bridge and stopped at the campsite just past it, at the little known and under appreciated Skoonichuk Falls. I'm not even going to try and guess how that is pronounced. It's a really big and interesting falls, but due to zero signage and relatively hidden angles you'd never see it unless you paid attention. As such, the only path to the bottom is a hard to spot, sketchy ditch trail that some people forced into existence. We scrambled to the bottom and were rewarded with a pretty sweet view all to ourselves.

The rest of the trip was uneventful.
7 Miles, like maybe 600 ft of total elevation gain.

Prancing Up The Primrose Path

The Goal:
Explore the Primrose Path and the western half of Multnomah Basin Rd.

The Primrose Path is essentially an unmaintained user trail shortcut link on the Wakeena/Angels Rest trail that goes up the ridge to meet Devil's Rest directly. The Multnomah Basin Road is what I explored last week, I just wanted to do the front half that goes directly behind Devil's Rest.

The Plan:
Park at Wakeena Falls, go up to the Angels Rest connector trail, find the Primrose path somewhere on it, climb to Devil's Rest, head back along the Devil's Rest trail to find the connection to the road, head down to the Larch Mtn. Trail, join up with the Mult/Wakeena connector, head back home.

The Trip:
Got off to a bad start. After extra waiting around because I had to drop Keeley off at a thing (I was flying solo again) I then got stuck in a nightmare of traffic patterns because Portland is doing construction on like 3 bridges at once because Portland is stupid. It took me 30 minutes to finally get across the river. I wanted to be hiking by 9:30, instead I started at 10:40.

I parked and headed up the Wakeena trail. The Wakeena trail sucks. It's 12 paved switchbacks to Lemmon's viewpoint. My rage over the early morning hassle got me about halfway before I was panting. I got to the viewpoint, and took my first detour.

Off of the trail here are two faint but unmistakable off-shoot trails. One goes down towards the creek, one goes up off to the side. I went up, saving the lower one for the trip back. The sketchy up trail went to what feels like an older, alternate viewpoint to the official Lemmon's Viewpoint. The view is slightly more interesting. It's also covered in Poison Oak, so I might be screwed later.

The Wakeena trail then continues up the picturesque cascading creek that is also steep. Passing by some waterfalls and fat tourists I eventually reached the Angels rest junction. Now I had to start to pay attention. The Primrose Path is not signed. All it has to signify it is a small Primrose flower at the base and obviously, the trail itself, which I wasn't sure would be terribly visible. The path starts at the top of 6 long easy switchbacks heading westerly. If I didn't know what to look for, I never would have seen it. It's right after switchback 6 on a corner.

The start of the Primrose

Out of every "unofficial" and "Unmaintained" trail I've taken in the gorge, this is the first one that genuinely felt lost. It was hard to see, clearly not frequently trafficked, narrow, brushy, and steep. It climbed right up a ridgeline. About halfway up there was a small clearing. What little info about this trail can be found indicates this is an outstanding view. It's very much not. Maybe one day long past it was, but now it's pretty bleh.

After the viewpoint, the trail meets up with an abandoned logging road for a short stretch, then goes into total bullshit mode. What was annoyingly steep becomes stupid steep and dumb and bad and why do I do this to myself aaaaagh. Well, the Primrose path is essentially the fastest way to Devil's rest, so it's gonna climb. Because I had been climbing basically since the car though with no flat sections to even me out I was pretty unhappy. When the path finally leveled back into annoyingly steep levels that's when you are basically there.

A sign in the middle of the trail, before the bad part

I sat on Devil's Rest, one of my favorite spots, and ate my lunch. I realized this was my 4th DR summit, which for the moment makes it the most summited mountain in the gorge, at least until I inevitably go up Dog Mtn. for the 4th time later this year.


I then headed down the regular trail to the east. After about a mile, a junction to a short trail to the Basin Road hits up the right side. From here I walked along the basin road as it went slowly downhill. The basin road is a good walk. It's wide, it's very quiet, and goes over some nice creeks. I followed the road until it hit the Larch Mt. Trail and where I stopped last weekend. I then headed down the Larch Mtn. Trail to Multnomah Falls for the second time in a week. But then I went up the Mult/Wakeena connector, giving me my final uphill half mile of the day, which I did not enjoy.

A quick jaunt down the Vista trail connector, and I was back at Lemmon's viewpoint. Now comes the best find of the hike! I took the lower side trail this time (as promised) and down this steep, overgrown, clearly forgotten path is a way to the top of Wakeena Falls. It's clear this trail used to be something bigger and more important before it got replaced by Lemmon's Viewpoint and forgotten. It is literally fenced in to keep you from dying (though the fence is slowly dying itself) and a very old, beat up stairway is cut out of the rock cliff side to allow you to continue. It's a tiny nook above the waterfall, forgotten to time, and it's a fantastic little secret.

Necktie Upper Wakeena Falls

The falls from above

Then I wobbled home.

Impressions:
Devils Rest will always be a Hiker's Hiker kind of destination. It's too steep with too little payoff for the classic tourist hiker, it's just for Hikers who want to be alone in the woods. I had the place all to myself for 30 minutes on a busy sunday, and right at the end two girls showed up, clearly disappointed that there was nothing to see and post to social media. This is why I appreciate DR so much. It's so close and offers a great getaway.

The Primrose Path doesn't offer much outside a shortcut alternative for Devils Rest loop options. If you have already done Devil's Rest the two classic ways, it offers a nice alternative.

The Mult basin road offers even less outside some pretty quiet walking. I probably won't re-walk that part.

RESULTS:
11 miles
roughly 2400 feet of elevation gain

I have thoroughly explored the Multnomah area in the past two weekends. I only have one area nearby that requires more exploring: The Bridal Veil Plateau. NEXT TIME, on DAVE GOES OUTSIDE. Well probably not next week, but it'll happen at some point.