Oregon Hikers

How many days in our average Decembers can one enjoy sunshine, light winds and beautiful views? Not many, for sure and despite my terrible habit of not getting up until 10 or later I decided on a hike today. I wanted something fairly close and relatively short due to the limited time I had. (my bad, mostly - can't blame the calendar for my slothful habits) Archer is the second closest Gorge hike on the WA side so out I went.

Stopping for a brief photo op at Cape Horn, this was the view:


The trail through the woods with the low angle sunlight was magical:


The rain on Tuesday freshened the many waterfalls along the route:


I'm not sure about this but I think the last week of fairly warm temperatures has greened up the moss:




Virtually no wind so Archer Falls was pretty tame today:


I'm looking forward to the next freeze/wind event so I can get a good shot of the falls. Must get there earlier in the day, too, so the sun is on the falls.


Scott Point:


The falls looked so nice and I decided to continue north and check it out from the top:


Looking straight down about 300' - still lots of ice remaining from the last cold snap.






A mossy rock wall as I treked back along an old logging road grade:


5.5 miles, 2,172' EG

A little bit of snow on the ground there, petty.

Yeah, nice weather this December

Some parts of Archer Mountain have fire damage and the terrain is unstable and extremely dangerous. A friend of mine got badly injured and was lucky to make it out of the area alive. So please stay away from any burned parts of the mountain. They are not safe.

Details of how that injury happened would be helpful in preventing a repeat occurrence.

chrisca wrote:Some parts of Archer Mountain have fire damage and the terrain is unstable and extremely dangerous. A friend of mine got badly injured and was lucky to make it out of the area alive. So please stay away from any burned parts of the mountain. They are not safe.

I've explored virtually every part of the burned area and found a few spots that could be problematical for some but not any more than the usual group of off-trail hikers I know could handle. So, I am very curious just where this incident occurred. dn

Don Nelsen wrote:

chrisca wrote:Some parts of Archer Mountain have fire damage and the terrain is unstable and extremely dangerous. A friend of mine got badly injured and was lucky to make it out of the area alive. So please stay away from any burned parts of the mountain. They are not safe.

I've explored virtually every part of the burned area and found a few spots that could be problematical for some but not any more than the usual group of off-trail hikers I know could handle. So, I am very curious just where this incident occurred. dn

Me too!

A friend of mine got badly injured and was lucky to make it out of the area alive.

Sounds pretty serious I'm assuming they has to be rescued then?

I guess we should be thankful the authorities didn't take the Oregon approach to public safety: ban hiking indefinitely from Washougal to White Salmon.

I keep thinking there are parts of Archer I haven't seen. Should get back there some day.

Guy wrote:

Don Nelsen wrote:

chrisca wrote:Some parts of Archer Mountain have fire damage and the terrain is unstable and extremely dangerous. A friend of mine got badly injured and was lucky to make it out of the area alive. So please stay away from any burned parts of the mountain. They are not safe.

I've explored virtually every part of the burned area and found a few spots that could be problematical for some but not any more than the usual group of off-trail hikers I know could handle. So, I am very curious just where this incident occurred. dn

Me too!

A friend of mine got badly injured and was lucky to make it out of the area alive.

Sounds pretty serious I'm assuming they has to be rescued then?

I also had both of these thoughts. My understanding was that the fire damage area on Archer was pretty small, and DN already checked it out and it seemed pretty moderate. Waiting for the details....