King's Mountain - Elk Creek hike Feb 20th

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dikkeknodel
Posts: 19
Joined: September 5th, 2016, 9:24 am
Location: The Netherlands

King's Mountain - Elk Creek hike Feb 20th

Post by dikkeknodel » February 21st, 2017, 10:17 pm

In the preparation phase for this hike I had already noted that the condition up on top of the mountain would most likely be much different to those at the trailhead. As I wanted to get to King's Mountain anyhow I decided to slightly deviate from the hike's routing. I started at King's Mountain Trailhead, to first go up to the King and then see from there how to continue.

Right after crossing the junction with the Wilson Creek River Trail I bumped into two local hikers (sorry I forgot your names, terrible me :oops: ) who were training for a six weeks PCT Oregon through hike. We had a nice chat on all that matters to life, nice hiking experiences. They advised me to not go back down via the Elk Mountain Trail, because it was too rugged for the current conditions. It's always nice to get advice when you tend to overestimate your own capabilities :? . Some adaptation was required and th new plan was to go down via the Elk Creek Trail instead. This appeared to be challenging anyway.

The first traces of snow started to appear at about 1000 ft altitude.
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As long as the path swirls through the dense forest, the layer of snow was quite manageable. I bumped into this picnic area, but without waterproof pants, it quickly got rather cold to use it. I really got into improving OpenStreetMap so I used this opportunity to add this picnic table to it.
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The path was a bit slippery, but in general it was manageable without any sort of spikes. I was well aware of the slipping danger, so when ascending the rocky steep parts I made sure to kick some steps into the snow before applying my full weight.

When the forest clears up when getting close to the summit, the snow layer increased. Although there was a layer of fresh snow, the tracks from February 19th's hikers (according to the summit's log) is still visible and gives a clear guide to the summit.
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The westerly wind was blowing pretty hard when approaching the top and being into the open. It did, however, not feel that cold. I think it was about 28 degrees, as snow was melting at about 2800 ft altitude just before the summit.
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With that easy route laid out by yesterday's hikers I was able to find the summit and put my name into the scrapbook of fame.
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From there onwards the tracking was fully into my hands, there were no visible marks of previous hikers (hero's, idiots, fill in what you like) going north from King's Mountain summit. Due to all the snow on the branches of the trees, these were hanging very low and also hid the clearances you normally expect from a beaten track. On top of that, by now I was nearly knee deep in the snow :D .
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Just north of the summit the path is just west of the ridge. Lots of snow from the ridge has slid onto the path, which made it seem like there was no path. This piece of the hike was the most difficult to navigate and literally move through. Below is an example of a minor slide.
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I now realize that I did not make any photo's of the hardest part. I must have been to much involved with actually navigating that I lost all other thoughts (which is good in a sense I guess). I think my average speed was about 1 mph along that ridge, most of the time I was standing still puzzled on where do I go from here.

Just before hitting the junction of Elk Creek - Elk Mountain - King's Mountain, I noticed these lines in the snow. I assumed these were tracks of a previous hiker with a fresh layer of snow on top of them, but is that the case? I actually do not have that much experience with snow layers more than 3 inches (back in the Netherlands).
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Down Elk Creek Trail I finally found some fresh tracks, I guess at about 2200 ft altitude. By then I could finally see more in the distance than clouds. It seemed like only one person had come up there and at some random point had given up and returned (I assumed because the snow pack was getting too much to handle). A lot further downward Elk Creek Trail a second track showed at some point.
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Before I did this hike I read about the history of Tillamook State Forest. During the whole hike I noticed that all the really thick trees (>4 ft diameter) were either stumps or fallen trees just there to perish, like the big ones in the photo below. All the trees still alive and kicking did now seem to be thicker than 2 feet. I was wondering, are those still leftovers from the Burn?
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On the southern slope of Elk Mountain I noticed this huge field of boulders both uphill and downhill from the Wilson River Trail. It must have been a serious incident that caused this huge amount of boulders to get spread around like this. I really love overgrown boulders, because it makes such a green picture I guess.
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I think I spent my day wisely and have created another great memory to Oregon to take home in two weeks!

Cheers,
Raymond
Keep hiking!

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Peder
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Location: Lake Oswego

Re: King's Mountain - Elk Creek hike Feb 20th

Post by Peder » February 22nd, 2017, 8:54 am

Well done with all that snow! Here is the section you forgot to photograph:
Image
Some people are really fit at eighty; thankfully I still have many years to get into shape…

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retired jerry
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Re: King's Mountain - Elk Creek hike Feb 20th

Post by retired jerry » February 22nd, 2017, 10:05 am

that looks scary

probably not quite as bad when you're actually doing it

dikkeknodel
Posts: 19
Joined: September 5th, 2016, 9:24 am
Location: The Netherlands

Re: King's Mountain - Elk Creek hike Feb 20th

Post by dikkeknodel » February 22nd, 2017, 1:15 pm

Peder wrote:Well done with all that snow! Here is the section you forgot to photograph:
Image
Yep, that it. Seems there was less snow when you visited. Monday there was no such thing as a path or anything close to flatness where the path was supposed to be. But the few places with vertical drop offs were okay to pass luckily, otherwise I would have back tracked.
retired jerry wrote:that looks scary

probably not quite as bad when you're actually doing it
It was at least a bit scary.
Keep hiking!

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

Re: King's Mountain - Elk Creek hike Feb 20th

Post by kepPNW » February 24th, 2017, 1:41 pm

retired jerry wrote:that looks scary

probably not quite as bad when you're actually doing it
That's me in red. This section was pretty good! (We could stop to take photos. ;)) Others, that day, not so much.
Karl
Back on the trail, again...

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