The river was a ribbon of beauty early in the morning, with the flow much reduced, and thus more picturesque than when at full spate, to reveal clear pools and tumbling falls. I stopped at Dougan Falls and reached for my camera . . . my hand waved around for a bit in the space where I usually lodge it and then I realized that it had chosen to remain safely nestled at home! After spending some moments sentencing myself to a particularly uncomfortable level of purgatory (I had simply forgotten to employ my usual cajoling/threatening tactics in trying to convince the camera to come with me – it won’t voluntarily submit itself to the abuse – and it had furtively stored itself out of sight), it was on with the hike (The Three Corner Rock photo is here supplied as a memento from an earlier trip).
Then it’s a series of switchbacking ups and downs on the north side of the Stebbins Creek valley in secondary and tertiary Douglas-fir forest. At one switchback, there’s a clear view ahead to Three Corner Rock on the skyline. Eventually the trail descends once again past a campsite to Stebbins Creek. There are no vestiges of the bridge that was once here, but it was an easy rock hop at low water levels. Now the trail was a continuous rise in younger forest, with glimpses of clearcuts on the south side of the valley.
I hit a ridgeline and then – total destruction! The DNR is pushing logging roads through in this area and the trail, which comes out between two brand new logging landings has been completely obliterated along the ridge. The roads are surfaced with rough aggregate at present and probably will be graveled, and then the cutting will begin. In their inimitable tradition, neither DNR nor the contractor has bothered to put up signage telling where the trail might resume, so I took a few wrong turns on the new roads before finding the path heading north across a slope and then up to the CG 1440 road.
On the way back, I decided to amuse myself counting switchbacks: 62 – spread over about nine miles. I saw no one else: mountain bikers had used the trail recently and a motorcycle had attempted the trail for a short stretch before digging out a chunk of the tread turning around.
I also encountered six cougars and three bears, the latter groggily lured out of hibernation by the bright sunshine, but without a camera I don’t have the pictures to prove this . . . .
and no doubt the so called "Learning Channel" will come a callin 
