Rock of Ages Loop Hike

[Lurch]

I feel like if you've just gone up to the Devil's Backbone, you could turn around and head back down without too much issue - which was all I meant, in case he really wanted to see the arch and backbone but didn't want to continue. That said, my assumption is that even though ROA is basically an official trail on par with Munra and Ruckel Ridge now, if injury/illness/lightning bolts from Zeus should strike, you should not be going up anything you cannot get back down. Regardless of where you are going, this is the basic agreement you make with yourself the second you step out of the house wearing hiking shoes. Caveat emptor.

I agree 100% my comment wasn't really a reaction to your post

The main problem that we've seen time and time again with people doing the loop backwards run into two main issues:

1. If they have *not* done the trail before, they don't have a concept of the steepness and ruggedness of the terrain they will be hitting in the last couple miles, of what to an average hiker would be a pretty good full day hike. If you're nearly hitting your wall, and losing daylight, people will push themselves to do something they may not be experienced enough to handle, because they don't think waiting a day is an option, or they don't want to hike back the long way.
2. Coming down something you've just come up, is far easier than following a lightly used, partially overgrown unofficial path that you've never been on before down a debatably sketchy ridgeline. You know the path for one. Instead people lose the trail, and drop down the fall lines into one of the northern draws paralleling the mystery trail only to cliff out, or down into horsetail canyon and if they're lucky escape on the Russ Jolly

Both of those issues are solved by going *up* ROA instead of down. You hit the more difficult part at the start of your hike while you're still fresh, if you need to bug out you've just been on it and are less likely to have route finding problems on your extraction. Your alternative options are not limited to '8 more miles of hiking what you just came up'. If you DO lose the trail, but keep going up and roughly SE you're contained by the Horsetail Creek Trail, and can fairly easily navigate yourself out from there.

[acorn woodpecker]

Now that it's official the Oneonta Trail is re-opened, that is by far the best option for a loop with the most enjoyable descent. Note that just before and above the crossing of Oneonta Creek (which is a thigh deep ford this time of year) there is an unofficial trail that splits and stays along the east side of the creek. This is HIGHLY recommended to staying on the official trail and crossing the creek.

If you want to avoid the longer loop, a nice shorter loop can be made utilizing the ROA Trail, the Mindlindovich Trail, and the Russ Jolley Trail...All are steep.

Mjuliana, since you said you wanted to avoid going down ROA, you would not want to take this loop either. While less muddy than ROA because it's less used, there are two difficult sections that must be negotiated that require the use of the hands. Even though it's shorter, it wouldn't necessarily take you much less time due to its ruggedness.

[mjuliana]

Thanks again everyone. Love this site and the depth of knowledge that is here.

[miah66]

Totally off topic, but looking at the map to visualize what AW was saying, and I found this weird floating rectangle. What is it? Any thoughts?



It's shaded similar to Ainsworth SP, but it's pretty far from it.

[Lurch]

There are small bits of property all over the place that were surrounded by the federal lands as the national forest grew around it. That 10 acre bit was private property until 2002, it's currently owned by the USFS. I believe it's shaded so simply so you can differentiate it from the National Forest that completely engulfs it, otherwise it would get mighty difficult to tell what's what.

If you look carefully over in front of Multnomah Basin you can see the same thing. The State park has a Dash-Dot border, where the 80 acres of Trails Club private property is solid. That's kind of a poor example because the Township & Range line, and the State Park line trump the private property, so you can really only see the southern border as a solid line, but the info is there!

[miah66]

Thanks Lurch,

I suspected as much but I wasn't sure.

I have been toying with map overlays, seeing the clearcut borders on satellite overlaid on the USFS map and it's pretty novel. Check out this perfect square of forest surrounded by clearcuts: