Tracy Hill-Catherine Creek-Coyote Wall 02-15-18
Posted: February 20th, 2018, 8:01 pm
We’d set our sights on the Catherine Creek area for a wander, but the Gorge drizzle was mildly disconcerting. True to form, however, Hood River was dry with swaths of blue occasionally unveiling themselves during the day. The new $2 toll for a replacement bridge was a nasty shock, but we’d recovered sufficiently by the time we arrived at Tracy Hill to be in decent hiking fettle.
We headed up along the Major Creek rim with grass widows, gold stars, and saxifrage in bloom and bitterroot in full leaf. Then it was into the oak woods, flitting with acorn woodpeckers, and out to Bathtub Spring. It was decided to take the one-mile diversion on the FR 3110-324 road, where they’ve been doing lots of thinning. We noted a smattering of snow here, and also a mad flock of turkeys that kept stalking us behind the cover of the oaks. We peeled off to follow Michael’s GPS and search out the summit of Tracy Hill, but banged up against a barbed wire fence that denoted private property.
Then it was a trundle back down to what I call the Ponderosa Nursery (two mature pines with a dense brood of offspring clustered about). We turned down from here towards Catherine Creek itself, taking the steep slope upstream on the braiding deer trails. It was a steep skitter down through the poison oak to the creek crossing where Old Stove Road makes its encounter. The convenient alder is still there, and it was just a mossy stepping stone across.
Then we took Old Stove to Atwood Road across the top of the area. We ate lunch at the collapsed homestead watching various parties of mountain bikers looping it down the Upper Labyrinth. After crossing Labyrinth Creek, we chose the Traverse Trail, which loops up mountain-bikewise past a rock dam to reach Coyote Wall.
Heading down the Wall, the views were windy and cold but still fairly blue looking east. We took winding Little Maui down the creek to the old highway, then launched ourselves upward again through the Labyrinth. We hiked the old Shoestring (now the Desert Parsley Trail) down into the Rowland Basin and through the Indian Pits area. Then it was up the scree past the pinnacle on the Rowland Wall.
The dying ponderosas here are now very dead and mostly keeled over from the California ips beetle infestation. We paid our homage to the arch, and then, with a gray and sleety-looking squall on the way, we cut our losses and indulged in Compost Toilet Way (or Maybe Compost Toilet Way or another name if someone can tell me what this contraption is). It is not for the fainthearted: the poison oak is not leafing out yet, but we were armpit deep in places. Back on the open slope, we cut across to Tracy Hill and got done just as the drizzle set in.
Michael’s GPS says it was 16.6 miles and 2,930 feet elevation again.
We headed up along the Major Creek rim with grass widows, gold stars, and saxifrage in bloom and bitterroot in full leaf. Then it was into the oak woods, flitting with acorn woodpeckers, and out to Bathtub Spring. It was decided to take the one-mile diversion on the FR 3110-324 road, where they’ve been doing lots of thinning. We noted a smattering of snow here, and also a mad flock of turkeys that kept stalking us behind the cover of the oaks. We peeled off to follow Michael’s GPS and search out the summit of Tracy Hill, but banged up against a barbed wire fence that denoted private property.
Then it was a trundle back down to what I call the Ponderosa Nursery (two mature pines with a dense brood of offspring clustered about). We turned down from here towards Catherine Creek itself, taking the steep slope upstream on the braiding deer trails. It was a steep skitter down through the poison oak to the creek crossing where Old Stove Road makes its encounter. The convenient alder is still there, and it was just a mossy stepping stone across.
Then we took Old Stove to Atwood Road across the top of the area. We ate lunch at the collapsed homestead watching various parties of mountain bikers looping it down the Upper Labyrinth. After crossing Labyrinth Creek, we chose the Traverse Trail, which loops up mountain-bikewise past a rock dam to reach Coyote Wall.
Heading down the Wall, the views were windy and cold but still fairly blue looking east. We took winding Little Maui down the creek to the old highway, then launched ourselves upward again through the Labyrinth. We hiked the old Shoestring (now the Desert Parsley Trail) down into the Rowland Basin and through the Indian Pits area. Then it was up the scree past the pinnacle on the Rowland Wall.
The dying ponderosas here are now very dead and mostly keeled over from the California ips beetle infestation. We paid our homage to the arch, and then, with a gray and sleety-looking squall on the way, we cut our losses and indulged in Compost Toilet Way (or Maybe Compost Toilet Way or another name if someone can tell me what this contraption is). It is not for the fainthearted: the poison oak is not leafing out yet, but we were armpit deep in places. Back on the open slope, we cut across to Tracy Hill and got done just as the drizzle set in.
Michael’s GPS says it was 16.6 miles and 2,930 feet elevation again.