Oregon Hikers

The Man himself at Lost Creek.

It looks like Jim (Beag) has sent you some clues on how to find this place but let me know if you need more help.

We have been reluctant to share this broadly on the internet so that it does not become overrun, especially this year after the Oregon side fire and so few places to hike.

Thank you so much. My love for backpacking comes from the trips we use to take with Russ. My dad hiked with him as a kid and so did my brothers and I. Thank you for the picture too. My brother would like to get a map of any trails people have of Russ's. We understand keeping them low key that's what we love so much about his trails. Really the only people on them knew Russ at some point. Any info that gives the location away you can PM me.

Do you know if the fires got to horsetail? I did that hike last year a few weeks before the fire. My brother and I really wanted to go back and put some work in on the trail. We found 1st camp but stopped there hopping we could go to 6th camp this year.

Natiwren wrote: ↑

April 17th, 2018, 10:09 am

Do you know if the fires got to horsetail? I did that hike last year a few weeks before the fire. My brother and I really wanted to go back and put some work in on the trail. We found 1st camp but stopped there hopping we could go to 6th camp this year.

It's very likely the old RJ trail and shelters in Horsetail Canyon are gone. The west sides of Horsetail Ridge and the ROA ridge are annihilated (Mindolovich is almost certainly gone), and there are definite patches of burn in the canyon above Ponytail Falls. It's not clear how bad the burn is down in Horsetail Canyon since no photos from boots on the ground have been released, but I think it's a long shot the adirondack shelter survived.

I might have found that saw on one of Russ's trail. His hat was on a rock in the same area for years and then dissapeared. Guy has a picture of it on one of his reports. I have been on most of Russ trails trying to keep them open. Some are probably lost .Too much lopping to keep them open. However there is a fairly good trail from Hardy Ridge to St Cloud Point. The old trail ran to St Cloud Park. It crossed the Powerline Road on the way up from Duncan and followed a route East of Archer and came out on the Gas line close to where fire started last year. The name on the saw was a good friend of Russ and they worked a lot on trails together. Forget his name now but he taught climbing for Mazamas. The same guy wrote a guide book about the Mount Margareth backcountry.

Beag I have a question you might know the answer to. You have been talking to my sister about trails we used to hike with Russ. It got me thinking about a camping trip I went on with Russ a few times and loved. He called it brain city. It was huge rock formations you could walk through. Do you know where that place is at? I had so much fun running through those things with my friends and I think my kids would enjoy it just as much.

As far as I know I have hiked most of the RJ trails.The map I have is really beat up, but you can have a copy. Russ has 4 areas marked with Teepee symbols on the map which were his camping areas while out in the woods. Big Momma and Sunshine were two of the names I recall right now and I know approx where they are located. There is only two areas where there are rocks, whether they are the places you played or not. How far did you hike to get to area. I only have info about WA although I have visited his Cabins in OR. Two man cross cut was on the rafters of the Cabins and I was going to borrow it for trail work.

I found some pictures of camping with Russ.

these may be updated versions of a couple of your photos:





Does this mean anything to you?

I believe that Brain City was at the Aiken Lava Flow south of Mount Adams.