Augspurger Mt from Cook via Can Lid Lane

[Chip Down]

First, a little personal background. The first time I was at Augspurger summit, I was surprised to see a trail following the ridge SE, marked with can lids nailed to trees. I followed it a ways, until it left the ridgecrest and switchbacked down to the north. I didn't have time to explore it, so I headed back up. Months later, I found what I assumed had to be the other end of the trail, at Augspurger Saddle. I followed it up a ways, but it was snowy, and getting late, and it was a bit brushy, so I aborted. Today I returned to take care of unfinished business.

Started at the Jackson Rd TH (standard launch for Cook Hill) and followed the road up. Occured to me I've never done this! I've travelled little bits and pieces of this road/trail, but never up from bottom to top. Arrived at Augspurger Saddle around 7:30ish. I've recently learned some call it Cook Saddle. Whatever. The Auggie Mt Radio Station is here, so that's what I call it. I suppose we could call it the Augspurger/Cook saddle. Anyway, it felt weird to be here so early, especially in fine weather. It's always been cold/windy/nasty when I've been here. Continued up the can-lid trail to Aug Mt. Initially it was brushy and boring, but eventually I started undulating through open forest and bare viewpoints. There was a section where the trail was hard to follow, but I knew if I followed the ridge I'd be okay. A little later, it got really tough, on a section that ran parallel below the ridgecrest. Severe storm damage, missing markers, obliterated trail. I was about to give up and head XC on my own ridgecrest route, but I finally spotted the trail and continued. Soon, I reached the ridgecrest again, and realized I was now on familiar ground. Which means on my previous visit, if I had gone just a little further down, the switchbacks would have ended and I would have started down the ridgecrest again. That's okay though, I had to turn back at some point. Anyway, I knew I was now very close, so pushed on another ten minutes to the viewless forested summit.

I'd been experiencing some anxiety on my ascent. I was worried about routefinding, and snow. Neither of them was a problem. In fact, after the saddle I had forgotten to worry about snow, until I saw some, but by that time I was getting pretty high, so I was confident it wouldn't be a problem. Besides, at a viewpoint down below, I could see the open slopes below the Defiance summit were mostly bare, and I was never going to get anywhere near that high today, so I relaxed a little after seeing that.

On the way down, I took a little side trip to the top of Cook Hill. It was fun to finally sit on a sunny rock on top of Cook and enjoy the flowers/views. Like the Aug Saddle, I think every time I've been to Cook it's been cold/snowy/rainy/windy.

[arlohike]

I just need to ask, do you somehow anticipate the perfect beer to pair with whatever you find on your hikes, or do you travel with a cooler filled with many different types and then choose the most appropriate one at the end of the day?

[Chip Down]

Sometimes it's planned, but usually (like yesterday) it's just dumb luck.

[BigBear]

You noted "Jolley Trail" in your report, but Dick Thomas was the driving force behind the Cook Mountain trail from the Columbia River side, while Frank & Charolotte Head were the designers of the long ridge trail from the gravel pit ont he north side of Augspurger.

[Chip Down]

Ah, okay. Perhaps that was just a random error on my part, but I'm pretty sure I've seen others here attribute that trail to Jolley.

When I dropped down the North side of Auggie on a previous visit, I was shocked to discover that the trail doesn't end at a viewpoint, but continues down down down to the old TH, where there's still a sign. I love finding stuff like that. It's not that I expected it to be overgrown; I didn't know there ever was a trail there. Was that an unsanctioned trail? If so, strange that the TH sign looks so official.

[beag]

Russ J phoned me to help him with the trail about 10 years ago. I was not able to help him at the time but later I was able to keep the trail open when few people knew about. I hiked and worked on trails with Dick T too, so whatever it's called it's ok with me, as I'm sure it would have been ok with Russ and Dick even though they were not bosom buddies. I hiked with Charlotte and Frank too and Charlotte hiked part of the tin can trail with us 3 years back. She was happy people were using the trail. She told us how Frank was layed off from his job with a local super market so he spent a lot of his time on Augspurger.. They also had a trail east of the PCT on Birkenfelt. Frank was a talker. We should try and hike those trails and remember the work the older people put into them.

[arlohike]

Chip, I hiked to Augspurger (from Dog Mountain Trailhead) yesterday and wanted to continue to the viewpoint that is described in the Field Guide as .1 miles past the summit. I noticed the blue diamond blazes changing to can lids at the summit, and followed the can lids past a rock slide with a nice Mt. Hood view, down through some bushes and some fallen trees and eventually to an open ridge, but that was more than a half mile. I walked to the low end of the ridge, where the path continued with the can lid blazes, then turned around and picked my way back up to the summit.

I'm thinking now I went down the wrong ridge -- I went east but should have gone north. Does that sound right? I didn't realize until later what happened, so I didn't explore the summit more to look for the closer viewpoint.

As you can see from the attachment, I accidentally veered off the faint trail on the way up and missed the summit, but I paid more attention and was able to follow the trail up and over on the way back. So maybe the path to the closer viewpoint would have been more noticeable if I'd been on the trail on the way up.

On the way back, I did see a path heading north, but not from the summit ... from a little way below it, near where you took the photo of the girdled trees. That could be the dotted line shown on the attached map. Maybe the field guide needs an update about how to find that viewpoint.

[Bosterson]

You started to go down the Tin Can Lid trail towards Cook. The Augspurger "trail" does not actually go to the summit - it contours over the west side (the "summit" sign is off to your right in the trees) and then continues downhill northish for a few hundred yards before popping out onto that north ridge.

That "dotted line" on the map is Google interpolating a USGS map - like many "official" maps, it's not actually where the trail is. The map is not the terrain.

[arlohike]

The Augspurger "trail" does not actually go to the summit - it contours over the west side (the "summit" sign is off to your right in the trees) and then continues downhill northish for a few hundred yards before popping out onto that north ridge.

Gotcha ... so the path I saw heading north near the girdled trees goes to the viewpoint, and I took the can lid trail up to the summit instead. I thought I had to get to the summit first, then continue on to the viewpoint.

[Chip Down]

I noticed the blue diamond blazes changing to can lids at the summit, and followed the can lids past a rock slide with a nice Mt. Hood view, down through some bushes and some fallen trees and eventually to an open ridge, but that was more than a half mile. I walked to the low end of the ridge, where the path continued with the can lid blazes, then turned around and picked my way back up to the summit.

At that section of ridgecrest where you saw no lids, you were off-route. At the open rocky slope, the trail abruptly drops off the north side of the ridge. Sounds to me like you'd find it rewarding to hike up Cook Hill and follow the can lids to Aug summit, then look for the northern route. If you have enough time/energy, you can follow that northern trail all the way to an abandoned trailhead.

Beag, thanks for the history lesson.