Underhill Trail-Lower Fifteenmile Creek Loop

[bobcat]

The Underhill Trail is the last hiking opportunity in the Mt. Hood NF as you go east on FR 44 towards Dufur. The 160 acres around the current small campground/picnic area was donated by Adeline Underhill, the wife of Ned Underhill, who operated a small mill here during the Great Depression. The scouts from nearby Camp Baldwin have earned innumerable merit badges setting up a small trail system that, due to lack of boots on the ground, is going to seed in places. Most of the signage is down or blasted to pieces with birdshot.

South of the campground a double loop leads down and around Ramsey Creek. I tried the East Loop and lost it in a meadow. The Old Cabin Loop sounded intriguing, but offered me just a crossing of a solid footbridge over Ramsey Creek before meeting the Underhill Trail where it leads up the ridge above Fifteenmile Creek, the next drainage. I knew the Boy Scouts would not promise an old cabin out of thin air, so I went back and dropped off the trail towards the creek. I found a small, collapsed structure and a woodpile, both surrounded by disintegrating split-rail fencing. Then I happened upon an old trail tread. I crossed one rotting footbridge and then another. Soon, and still on this abandoned trail, I came to a shelter constructed in 1992. Farther on, meeting the main section of the Underhill Trail, I found the old cabin, now a little worse for wear.

I took the Underhill Trail up to the ridgetop and crossed FR 4421 (The crossing is not direct and the trail resumes, unsigned and indistinct, 40 yards to the left). From here, it’s a lovely traverse down Fifteenmile Creek’s northern slope through oak and ponderosa grassland blooming with balsamroot, death-camas, and buckwheat. There are views to Lookout Mountain, Flag Point, Gordon Butte, etc. The trail becomes indistinct in some of the lower meadows before it descends through a narrow corridor of conifers and reaches the Fifteenmile Creek Trail at a campsite and the junction with the Cedar Creek Trail. In keeping with Underhill’s understated presence, the trail is not mentioned on the three signs that are here and you wouldn’t know it was there even standing three feet away.

Then it was a traipse down the lower three miles of the Fifteenmile Creek trail, first through a series of meadows (Strawberry, Pinegate, and Oldshoe) in shady bottomland forest. I headed up above the conifers into oak woodland, crossing numerous dry draws and scaring snakes (yellow-bellied racers – too fast to take a photo) and ground squirrels. Interesting conglomerate cliffs of the Dalles Formation sometimes reared above the trail. I crossed the creek twice on substantial bridges. Finally, I reached the unsigned and derelict trailhead (Years of target practice take their toll).

As I had a quiet lunch by the creek, I looked at my Barlow District map and realized I could make a loop out of it on abandoned and little-used roads. From the trailhead, I walked east up an abandoned track under oaks and more Dalles Formation outcroppings, I got great views back to Mt. Hood and the cliffs on Fifteenmile Creek’s southern slope.

The abandoned track meets an 4WD forest road on the ridge crest and I started hiking west. Immediately, I encountered No Trespassing and Private Property signs. Both sides of the road here are owned privately, but I saw that vehicle tracks had gone all the way through and the track is marked on the map with a FS number (No guarantee, I know, since it’s not clear if a public easement is in effect here). However, there were no gates or armed guards, just a lonely A-frame off in the oaks. After about ¼ mile, I was back in the national forest and gradually ascending the ridge in beautiful oak and ponderosa forest with occasional views to the Fifteenmile Creek drainage. Where the 4WD road headed away from the edge, I took a bermed track sometimes, obviously, used by ATVs.

This kept me to the ridge crest and eventually joined FR 4421 about ¾ mile east of where the Underhill Trail crosses it. All in all, a fine day spent with a few fellow mammals, none of them human, as well as the birds, reptiles, and invertebrates, also none of them human, of the eastern oak woodlands.

[sprengers4jc]

Nice find on this trail system , bobcat! A day spent with no other humans (except the spousal unit, of course) sounds divine. Any guess on mileage and EG, or a rough map sketch?

[miah66]

Wow! Nice area! I love those oak woodlands w/ Pondo pines, seems to be a rare thing now w/ all the forest fires. I too would love to see a map of your track. (We are lazy, I guess) Hope to see it in the field guide one day.

[bobcat]

@sprengers and miah:

Here's the general idea (just a sketch):

[sprengers4jc]

The lazy ones thank you .

[McChaix]

Pretty interesting explorations. Thanks for the recon!

[mattisnotfrench]

Wow, I had no idea that trail was even there and I've been to the Fifteenmile Creek area many times. I'll have to check this out some time when I want to hike into the area without starting at the top!

[Limey]

We love that area. We usually camp for a week in the area every summer and do off trail explorations. There are some amazing rock formations in the most surprising locations. Every time we find a new one we're saying "Wow, who knew". There is so much to explore over there.