8/25/12 Toutle Trail #238 toward Sheep Canyon Mt. St. Helens

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mileagemike25000
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8/25/12 Toutle Trail #238 toward Sheep Canyon Mt. St. Helens

Post by mileagemike25000 » September 1st, 2012, 6:26 pm

It's been a while since my last TR but please excuse the delay as we've been on a 6 day vacation to the the Crater Lake Area and just got back last night! It will probably take several days to catch up as we went on 7 hikes in the last 7 days. :) With so many TR's to do I will probably shorten them a bit to get the reports out quickly.

We decided to take a pre-vacation warm-up hike to the Toutle River Trail #238, last Saturday, with some good friends.

The TH for this hike is at a large parking lot at the end of NF-8123. There were several cars at the TH but we only saw one group of hikers (and two people on horseback) the entire day.
1 Toutle Trail #238 TH_(1).JPG
The trail heads out through a mostly barren expanse of lava rock with sporadic trees dotting the landscape. We headed toward Blue Lake and came across a stream crossing.
2 Stream crossing - oops wrong place_(1).JPG
After crossing we headed up the trail and found out it was washed out upstream! I guess the real crossing is further up the trail toward Blue Lake? :?
3 Trail washed out by creek!_(1).JPG
We decided to bushwack up the steep hillside to intersect the real trail. I don't recommend doing this as it is really steep! However, we continued and got a glimpse of Blue Lake.
4 Bushwacking to real trail - Blue Lake view_(1).JPG
We continued hiking up the gentle grade and soon found we broke out into a view of Mt. St. Helens!
5 Trail opens up to view of Mt. St. Helens_(1).JPG
Continuing the hike we soon reached a small meadow where the view of Mt. St. Helens was spectacular! :)
6 Reached meadow with stellar view!_(1).JPG
As we moved on we intersected the Blue Horse Trail #237. This would be our return path to add a small loop to our hike.
7 Passed Blue Horse Trail - This is return loop_(1).JPG
I looked at my GPS and saw that we would be intersecting several trails in another 1/2mile or so. There are a couple of intersections in this region. You can continue on the Toutle Trail #238, over a bridge, and head out toward the Loowit trail.
13 Crossing Sheep Canyon Creek over bridge for further exploration_(1).JPG
14 Exploring Toutle trail past bridge - heading toward Loowit trail_(1).JPG
Or you can head SE on the Sheep Canyon Trail #240 trail toward the Loowit trail. In this direction there is a bridge over a beautiful stream,
8 Turning SE and crossing log bridge over stream on Sheep Canyon Trail_(1).JPG
where a nice campground sits above the trail.
9 Nice Campground off Sheep Canyon Trail_(1).JPG
Or.... you can take the Sheep Canyon trail #240 NW toward road NF-8123!
10 Exploring Sheep Canyon Trail going NW_(1).JPG
We chose to explore a bit further in this direction due to time limitations. We were rewarded when the trail broke out of the forest and yielded a fantastic view of the Mts.! :)
11 Sheep Canyon Trail breaks out with great view of Mts._(1).JPG
Our friend noticed a rock outcropping that appeared interesting, so we headed out to see if it was accessible from the trail? ;) Little did we know that this rock outcropping/cliff would give a fantastic view of a falls! :D I don't know if this falls has a name (sheep canyon falls?)?
12 Falls from viewpoint of of Sheep Canyon Trail_(1).JPG
As you can see from this report there are a number of exploration opportunities in this region of the monument! We only had time to investigate a short distance from the intersections but plan on coming back again. :)

We headed back down the Toutle Trail and followed the Blue Horse Trail back to the TH. The total hike distance was 8.9 miles with an elevation gain of about 1750ft.
15 Toutle Trail #238 Hiking Route.JPG

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Splintercat
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Re: 8/25/12 Toutle Trail #238 toward Sheep Canyon Mt. St. He

Post by Splintercat » September 8th, 2012, 9:57 am

Thanks, Mike - yet another nice report! :D

That's a substantial falls -- have you checked Bryan Swan's site to see if he's got a description for it? I suspect he does.

Thanks for posting!

-Tom :)

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mileagemike25000
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Re: 8/25/12 Toutle Trail #238 toward Sheep Canyon Mt. St. He

Post by mileagemike25000 » September 9th, 2012, 8:09 pm

Tom - Thanks for the hint to look at Bryan Swan's site for the waterfall info. There is info for this falls at http://www.waterfallsnorthwest.com/nws/ ... p?num=5262. The Sheep Canyon Falls drops 89ft with a pitch of 89 degrees and a flow of 35cfs. I think the waterfallsnorthwest site is fascinating and looks to be a great info site! :)

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