User "gratefultrails" and I decided to do an after work jaunt into the Salmon Huckleberry Wilderness for some garbage cleanup at Plaza Lake.
He met me in Clackamas, and we set off for the Old Baldy West TH. Drive time was about 50 mins.
Old Baldy Trail is super steep to start out, and my legs were burning right away! Finally at the top, the trail then undulates along the ridgeline of Tumala Mtn.
The trail is a blur as we speed along!
It continues climbing steadily as it passes the junction w/ the Fanton trail, and then you continue climbing some more to a saddle, where you can continue up to the summit, or head east along the Old Baldy trail towards Twin Springs. We took the latter route. Now it descends from the saddle in some switchbacks. I remarked "this is going to suck on the way back". It did.
Now down, the schizophrenic trail then ascends steadily to a rocky viewpoint of the backside of Tumala Mtn.
Backside of Tumala Mtn (I think the summit is the middle one, but could be wrong):
Looking down the valley towards Tumala Lakes region. It's actually meadows at the moment, but probably swampy in the winter and spring. I'd like to visit this area another time. There is a use trail down to it from this trail, and it looks quite beautiful at the moment with the fall golds and reds.
Shortly there is a scramble path on the left where you can go out for some limited views to the North and East.
We could see up the Eagle Creek drainage to Wildcat Mtn (on left), the strange formation of Sheepshead Rock (on right), a faint Mt St Helens, and a fainert Mt Rainier 115 mi away.
There was a tree nearby with some twisted wire that had become embedded over the decades. Not sure, but possibly lookout or communications related.
The trail mellows as it arrives at the Abbott Rd and Twin Springs TH. You can continue on a trail to the Plaza via the Plaza trail from here as well, which I intend to do sometime in the future. Officially, it is called the Old Baldy TH, as the sign attests.
This is also the edge of the Salmon Huckleberry Wilderness, as Abbott Rd forms the boundary NE of here.
Walking along the rugged Abbot Rd (FS 4610) you pass the bermed entrance to Twin Springs CG. If there wasn't a huge ditch, an old structure, and this berm, you wouldn't even know it was here.
We didn't explore it on this trek. Further on, we arrived at the Plaza Lake TH, where there was a wide parking area and a firepit.
From here it is alot of switchbacking down through the trees to arrive at the 0.5 acre lake. It's a smallish, unremarkable lake, though it has it's charms. There are some nice old growth Firs & Cedars on the Western shoreline. It was from this area that we removed the debris found by gratefultrails on his previous excursion.
Big Doug Fir & author:
Lake from the Western shore:
A dark Pano of the lake as evening approaches:
From the Northern shore:
Winter is coming:
After exploring the lake shore and bushwhacking a bit to see if we could find a view to the South from the open bowl the lake sits in (we couldn't-too many trees and rhodies), we returned to remove the debris that spawned this excursion. It turned out it wasn't a tarp fouling this campsite, but rather it was two large inflatable rafts.
One was cut in several pieces, so we loaded it into two 10 gallon trash bags. We hauled the other raft out whole. It was quite a job hauling it all out of the steep bowl, but we got them to the trailhead and left them roadside. I notified the Forest Service, hopefully they will send someone out to collect them, or a good samaritan w/ a truck will decide to haul them out. Any takers?
GPS coords of the rafts: N45.22679, W121.9975
We quickly headed back towards the trailhead in hopes of catching some nice light on the return. We weren't fast enough to make it all the way back to Tumala before the sunset, though we did make it back to the rocky viewpoint below the summit for a nice end to the day, and I took my favorite picture from the trip.
We finished as dark descended, and I walked the final 1/2 mi by headlamp. It was cool to see this area, and even cooler to visit it on a weeknight! We didn't see another soul after we turned onto Divers Rd. It was also nice hiking with a fellow Oregon Hiker. I was thinking about all of the other forum users I have had the pleasure to meet and hike with, and many that I haven't yet had a chance to. I have friendships spanning years with some of you, and that is a great thing! I'd encourage some of you who may be new to the area, or website, who haven't yet, to reach out to others and invite them on a hike. You might just meet your new hiking buddy!
