As well as the much talked about Oregon Russ Jolley Trail he also built a trail about 15 miles long on the Washington side from Highway 14 near Prindle to Kueffler Road just just West of Hardy ridge. While much of the beginning of the trail on the West end has been reclaimed by the forest other sections remain intact & one of these is near Duncan Creek. This route uses some existing RJ trail, old logging roads & a couple of user / game trails to make a 6 mile loop that includes 2 great view points & several lesser known waterfalls.
We set off from the Duncan Creek bridge & our first goal was to get between the West & East forks of Duncan Creek. There is a short user trail that heads up the West side of Duncan Creek that leads to a couple of logs over the West fork.
Temporarily stringing a rope across the creek makes it easier to cross the logs, well except for the first & the last person
..From here the trail becomes more defined & leads you over to the West side of the East fork of Duncan Creek. In the Summer when the water level is low this first section could be avoided & you could begin the hike on the East side of the East Fork & cross over to the West side at a popular day use spot on the creek. Hope I haven't confused you all with too many East & West Fork references! If I have check the map!
After a short distance you hit the old RJ trail & you can then follow this up the West side of the creek. It travels through some very green & mossy forest with frequent views of the creek below.
After about a mile or so there is a series of 4 waterfalls appropriately named Quad Falls but you need to leave the trail & scramble around the creek to see them & we didn't do that on this trip.
After about 2 miles you come to a lovely spot in the Forest with great views of Apron Falls.
The trail continues up the side of Apron Falls and just at the top there is a junction that will take you West to complete the loop. First though we continued on the same trail to get a look at Railcar Falls and check out a viewpoint just East of Railcar Bridge.
Rail Car Bridge
Sherrard Point from the East view Point.
Railcar Falls were very impressive over 100' with several rocky falls & lots of water but nowhere to get a good photo of the whole thing. The photo below just shows the top portion of the Falls.
We then headed back down the trail to the Junction near the top of Apron Falls & headed West.
Like Hobbits on a quest we stop to check a faded and tattered Russ Jolley original map
We reached the West Fork of Duncan Creek again & crossed back over to the West side.
"No dear, I'm marking a waypoint not updating my Facebook Status"!!
After crossing back over the creek the trail is currently less well defined but heads over to a ridge North of the Powerline road by way of some old logging roads & what looked to me like possible rail line cuts. The Ridge line climbs back up to about 2000' feet then begins to drop down again at about 1700' there is a great viewpoint.
From this point there are several ways down to the Powerline Road next to Cynthia Falls. The one we chose uses another short section of the original RJ trail as it made it's way over to & around the front of Archer Mountain.
The trail hits the Powerline road right above Cynthia Falls though you would never know it was there hidden from view the way it is!
From here it was just a walk down the Powerline road back to the Duncan Creek Bridge where we started, we clocked 6 miles & 1650' of EG.
One of my goals for this Summer is to enlist a few of the other looneys on this site & do a car shuttle day hike from the Archer Mountain Smith-Cripe Road all the way to Table Mountain so the next section that we will be exploring in preparation for this is the Russ Jolley Trail between Duncan Creek & Kueffler Road.
Lots more photos & a Map of our route here.
