Shellrock Mountain

[Chip Down]

THE PLAN
Explore every road and trail between Wyeth and the old Defiance log staircase, then at least one route up to the top of Shellrock Mountain.

THE LOW EXPLORATION
If you could see this on a GPS track, you'd think I lost my mind. Parked at the first possible spot after the east end of the Shellrock barrier. Headed up directly, and hit the 1872 road in 5 minutes. Followed it west until it faded, then east until it turned into a trail that faded at Summit Creek. No way I was going to drop into that steep brushy canyon. Back west again to the Shellrock trail. Took the switchbacks down to the HCRH and followed it east as far as possible, then west until it ended at I84, at the "property of" sign I've seen mentioned as a good parking spot. Could see my car off to the west, off the I84 shoulder. Then back up Shellrock to the 1872 road, and a little east to pick up the continuation of Shellrock trail, which took me up to the powerline trail, which I followed east, up the stairs, to Summit Creek, across, where it became a road, dropped my pack, followed road to its end just west of Lindsey Creek. From here, could see Viento Ridge, Starvation Ridge, Cabin Creek Ridge, and Warren/Wonder Ridge. A big red DT painted on a tree. Any ideas? Returned west to an access road, down to I84, back up to a 4-way junction with HCRH, which I followed east to a rocky outcropping and a monitoring well, then back west through charming dark forest and mossy little cliffs and mossy crumbling masonry, followed a little spur road where I found an old radiator hose (?) and a white 4x4 that could have been a signpost or a fence post, back to HCRH, westbound, past jersey barriers that block vehicular traffic (WTF?) to a sunny cliff that's been blasted to prevent rockfall, another sampling well. HCRH ends at Summit Creek, but a faint trail, marked by little cairns, drops to the creek and follows it up. I hesitated, but went for it. Up the canyon, enjoying gobs of pretty cascades, to the pool at Camp Benson Falls (?), then up a steep sketchy trail that took me up to the powerline road on the east side of the creek. I wasn't planning a loop when I started out, so had to go east a bit to grab my pack, then back to Shellrock Trail. I doubt you followed all that. Heck, I'm the one who hiked it, and it practically makes my head spin. Total blast though, incredibly fun.

UP SHELLROCK
Okay, all that exploring was great, but it was time to take on Shellrock. The slope of the rocky switchbacks is ridiculously gradual, tempting any fit impatient hiker to go straight up. At the end of the talus/slide switchbacks, the trail suddenly gets faint and brushy, but there are clues: cairns, flagging, sawcut maintenance, notches cut into downed trees, occasional sections of good tread, a dog harness. Yeah, seriously, an elaborate nylon-webbing doggie harness. Who brings their dog to a place like this? And then loses their harness? A breach cut in a downed tree, and then two more intact trees right on top, as if the trees were saying "oh yeah, take this"! I think Peder posted a pic of that, he knows what I mean. Finally, came to a very steep mossy rocky ridge that was the obvious way up. In terms of steepness, I'd compare it to the steepest sections of Ruckel Ridge or Nesmith Ridge (not to be confused with Nesmith Point Trail). Now it was getting fun and interesting.Towards the top it started getting PITA brushy again and I was getting discouraged, but then...

THAT THING, THAT ENIGMATIC POST-MOUNTED PYRAMID!
The weather station! Well, I guess that's what it is. That's what I've been told. Who knows. I had heard about it, and was hoping to find it, but didn't expect to run right into it. Really glad I kept going. Took a looong break here, stuffed myself with a half liter of cider and a half pound of ham and a half dozen Hellen Bernhard cheese-flake rolls. I'm told this spot used to be fenced off, and I saw evidence of that in rotten boards that I think were the corner posts (the fence/cage was wire, I think).

THE SECOND HALF
Above the pyramid, the route deteriorated. Had to stay on crest or left, but not left enough to get into the heavy brush. Occasionally I encountered trails, and thought I might try to stick to them on the way down. After what felt like way too long, as I was getting discouraged again, I checked map/www/gps and realized I was very close, maybe 100 vertical feet. Sure enough, a little later I topped out. But where's the cairn? Isn't there supposed to be a cairn here? A big one, like 3 or 4 feet high? I imagined Splintercat gleefully scattering the rocks, as he's wont to do, but I didn't even see enough rocks to build a big cairn. Looked up a pic online just to be sure. Hmm. Oh, maybe I need to drop down the well-defined crest to the southish, and back up. So I did that, thinking I had hit a false summit. But no, after rising again to a high point, the ridge dropped again. Clearly, I had gained the top of Shellrock. Glad I went that way though, to the next high point and beyond. It was a fun stroll, and finally got a view (Defiance?).

A TOUGH DESCENT
Okay, so back to the last high point, then started down a very clear ridge, but stopped. Too westish, too clear...no sign of it rising again...lovely ridge, but not mine. Back up, then over, there we go, this is it. Good thing I was paying attention. Even so, I struggled tremendously coming down from the summit. I followed the trail, rather than repeating my ascent route. But of course it kept disappearing. Fortunately, I had paid close attention coming up, and from time to time I'd spot something familiar to reassure me. And once, a tiny scrap of pink flagging to help me out. Sure seemed like I was getting awfully low though. When I rejoined the steep long mossy crest at about its halfway point, I scratched my head and wondered if I could be below the pyramid. Continued on, absolutely certain now that I was on route, but starting to question my memory of the sequence. But eventually, I had to accept that I had missed the pyramid. No big loss, as I had already lingered there and had my fill of it. But it underscores the importance of picking a good route here. There were a lot of interesting fun moments, in spite of the overall drudgery, and a poorly picked route up Shellrock could really turn into a all-work-no-reward hike if you were to bypass the good parts.

MORE UTILITY TRAIL
When I got back to the switchbacks, I headed west on the powerline trail. The ladders were cool. Lovely views, but hard to enjoy that when picking your way across a rocky trail. But even that was fun, getting a momentum going and picking the next step on the fly, with almost no time for assessment or correction. A less confident less experienced hiker would have to go very slowly through here, cautiously picking each rock to step on. At the west end, the forest boundary is super crisp, and when I saw it, as the trail was descending, I figured there was no need to continue. Couldn't see the bottom of the trail as it curved to the left, but I didn't feel like I absolutely needed to. Could see the verdant powerline road off to the west. Turned and headed back east. At the east ladder, noticed I could see the staircase, and felt foolish, because that means in the morning I could have seen the ladder from the staircase if I had really looked for it. Back to the 1872 road and down to my car. I know I could have dropped straight down much earlier, but it was fun to retrace my steps, and I like seeing routes both directions.

THE AFTERHIKE
Wanted to explore the terrain between the old Defiance log staircase and Lindsey Creek, so drove east looking for a good access spot. There were a few places to park, but no appealing terrain, just forest. Soon, I was really too far east, so gave up on this for now, and looped back to Wyeth to poke around there. On the way, spotted a utility access road a bit east of Wyeth. So when I got off at Wyeth I went back east and pulled in there. The utility road goes right to the bottom of the Shellrock powerline trail, where it meets the powerline road. How cool! Nice access spot for a quick approach to Shellrock. Don't tell anybody though; it will be our secret. I hiked around the rock/forest margin headed roughly southish, above the start of the utility trail, until I tired of that and realized it wasn't going to yield anything interesting right away. Back down to the car, exploring sections of HCRH, spots of asphalt peeking through the moss. And what appeared to be an old hobo camp. Very old, judging by the hardware and glass bottles ("federal law forbids reuse"). Lots and lots of bones, heaps of bones. Found a crumbling mossy foundation/basement for who-knows-what. Too dark to get a decent picture. A decaying rust wood-and-barbed-wire fence. Some stuff I don't even know how to describe. A mylar Happy Birthday baloon. This place is just dense with history. Makes me wonder what I overlooked.

[bobcat]

The weather station! Well, I guess that's what it is.

It's a geologic monitoring station - now discontinued of course. Shellrock and Wind Mountains are sisters in crime, being granodiorite intrusions into the Columbia River Basalts. Wind, being on the north side of the river, is ever sliding away and the Shellrock monitor was set up to measure its incremental rate of decay.

Haven't been up there in a long time - glad to know it can still be found.

[Chip Down]

But the weather station story made so much sense! If you wanted to site a weather monitor in the gorge, you'd put it in a remote spot half way up a mountain with no road access, right? And you'd put it a slightly sheltered spot where it wasn't really subject to the full force of winds, right? And of course you'd mount it on a aluminum pyramid attached to a concrete pillar. Oh, wait...none of the above. I've been skeptical of the whole weather station thing. Also heard it was a survey point, but that seemed like BS too. But monitoring Wind Mountain? Sure, that's plausible. You'd want a solid base for that, precisely positioned (not just a survey marker embedded in the rock. But can you cite a source? Do you remember where your learned about this? Any idea why they stopped monitoring? Do we know anything about the data that was harvested?

By the way, I have a bunch of pics that I didn't post, so if anybody is interested in a particular section of my hike, I can share.

[Don Nelsen]

Nice report- I feel like I'd done the hike again after reading all that

Funny about that summit cairn. It seems to belong in a going-going-gone category:

Here it is on Nov. 27th 2004:


And again on July 4th, 2010:


dn

[Chip Down]

I was excited when I saw a Don Nelson reply. I knew good info would be shared.

[bobcat]

But can you cite a source? Do you remember where your learned about this?

Don and Roberta Lowe - is that good enough? "The small structure several yards downslope is an observation station built by the U.S. Geological Survey for monitoring possible land slippage in the Wind Mountain area" (Hike #32 Shellrock Mountain 35 Hiking Trails: Columbia River Gorge, 2nd ed. 1988).

[Webfoot]

How many ticks did you encounter on this outing?

[Chip Down]

How many ticks did you encounter on this outing?

What a weird question! But here's the thing, I got my first tick maybe a couple months ago, and then on the next trip, and the next, and it was just weird. What the hell? But none on this trip, and none in a while, so I guess I'm semi back to normal. I'm extremely cautious though, with gaiters that never come off, permethrin all over, long pants always, even in the summer. So YMMV.

[Webfoot]

How many ticks did you encounter on this outing?

What a weird question! But here's the thing, I got my first tick maybe a couple months ago, and then on the next trip, and the next, and it was just weird. What the hell? But none on this trip, and none in a while, so I guess I'm semi back to normal. I'm extremely cautious though, with gaiters that never come off, permethrin all over, long pants always, even in the summer. So YMMV.

You and I have posted in tick-related threads often enough now I thought you would be expecting it. The power line trail up there was the source of my first-ever tick encounter, last June, so I thought perhaps it was a hotbed of sorts.

[Chip Down]

[From the summit] started down a very clear ridge, but stopped. Too westish, too clear...lovely ridge, but not mine. Back up, then over, there we go, this is it. Good thing I was paying attention.

I came up the NW ridge a few days ago (fun, recommended, will probably post a TR) and wasn't at all surprised to find myself on the mystery ridge from the previous trip. From the top of the NW ridge, it was just a few minutes to the summit, so I decided to go look for signs of the cairn, now that I had pics showing exactly where it was. Below you'll find DN's pic from a few years ago, and a very similar perspective from a few days ago.