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.