Stebbins Creek Trailhead Gone

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kepPNW
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Joined: June 21st, 2012, 9:55 am
Location: Salmon Creek

Stebbins Creek Trailhead Gone

Post by kepPNW » May 14th, 2018, 3:12 pm

Short story is, a new logging road has obliterated the trailhead and first 1/2 mile of the Stebbins Creek trail from W2000. The trail is signed "Closed" and is starting to appear abandoned.

Original report here: Subject: New road interrupts trail

My update to that:
kepPNW wrote:
May 14th, 2018, 3:01 pm
Sugar Pine wrote:
February 11th, 2018, 7:38 am
When we were a few switchbacks from W-2000 road and Three Corner Rock TH the trail abruptly ended at a ~15 foot drop down to a new road. It appeared too steep, so we bushwhacked up a bit, seeing what looked like a drainage on our GPS. Not much of a drainage, but there was a place we could slide down the hill to the road.
Wow! I kind of shrugged, and didn't think a whole lot about this, until I got there on Saturday. That trailhead is basically obliterated! If I hadn't know where the trail was, up above, from a previous visit/track it would've been more than a bit difficult, if not impossible, to locate.

I parked at what I knew as the old trailhead, which was maybe 1/8 mile before the large pullout on the left/west of W2000. That other spot was entirely filled with very large construction vehicles (graders, dump trucks, bulldozers, etc).

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Where the Stebbins Creek trail used to hit the road.


Didn't look all that bad, so I decided to give it a go straight from there. First thing I see:

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Not cool. But it's a Saturday, so no active road building today! WTH...


Scrambling up from the old TH was fraught with irritants, as it was basically crawling through a brush pile. To me, this just seemed like gratuitous hazards, placed there to piss off hikers not willing to read and obey the sign.

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Looking down from the beginning of the first scramble.


Climbed up another 200' or so through all sorts of downed trees and limbs, before hitting a brand new road! OMG... Looking across it, I see what the real issue is going to be. That climb up is steep! And totally unconsolidated. I wandered back and forth a bit, looking for a good option. Tried two, each of which started the hillside sliding my general direction before I was halfway up, before finding a third route that was stable enough for me to manage reaching some wayward roots to pull myself the rest of the way up with. What a nightmare!

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There was a bit of a groove here to walk up. Look for markings on tree above.


That route may, probably will give way, but you can find it looking for the paint on this tree:

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Head up and to the right from directly below this one.


As it turned out, getting up was FAR easier than coming back down. Oh my goodness! Finding the right spot to drop down from above was a royal PITA, especially after more than 20 trail miles and just wanting to be done. This is what you see when you hit the end of the trail:

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Sliding down here would HURT! Serious.


All you can do then is back up 50 feet or so, bushwhack uphill then to the left/north, checking every so often for a chance to descend. Even when I found the place I initially went up, there was no way to get over the edge other than butt-sliding on down, bringing a cascade of rocks along with me.

Meanwhile, the trail itself is taking on all appearances of simply being abandoned. What a shame! :(
Karl
Back on the trail, again...

handerson
Posts: 7
Joined: July 7th, 2017, 4:51 pm

Re: Stebbins Creek Trailhead Gone

Post by handerson » April 29th, 2019, 11:33 am

I tried to do this trail yesterday. It is just one logging field after another. You can find the trail between the logging fields, but after a mile or so I just gave up.

I called the DNR and they said that there is no timetable for the completion of logging activities, but probably several more years.

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Last edited by handerson on April 29th, 2019, 12:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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kepPNW
Posts: 6411
Joined: June 21st, 2012, 9:55 am
Location: Salmon Creek

Re: Stebbins Creek Trailhead Gone

Post by kepPNW » April 29th, 2019, 11:49 am

handerson wrote:
April 29th, 2019, 11:33 am
I tried to do this trail yesterday. It is just one logging field after another. You can find the trail between the logging fields, but after a mile or so I just gave up.

I called the DNR and they said that there is no timetable for the completion of logging activities, but probably several more years.
Really sad news that they won't even try to make it work here as they have, for example, on Silver Star. :cry:
handerson wrote:
April 29th, 2019, 11:33 am
I am not really sure how to insert pictures with this tool, but perhaps you can follow this link to see what the trail looked like: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g7oab9fx8tfn3 ... _trail.jpg
Once you have the image onscreen, right-click and "Copy Image Path" (or whatever option your browser displays), then stuff that between IMG tags. Press the Quote button on this, or any, to see the code behind the post.

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Karl
Back on the trail, again...

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