Regret: the clearcut surrounding this riparian jewel is a depressing picture of our cultural priorities
Thanks to Brian Edwards et al for introducing me to this place on the north fork of the Clackamas River:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=14205&start=0
https://sites.google.com/site/clackamas ... amas-river
Location: 45.24136, -122.22071
I went yesterday to be in water and escape the heat, and the water did not disappoint. The lack of trails did, but that was expected. The overall atmosphere, before being at water level, was troubling. It's in the middle of a clearcut and the riparian area's protected, but just barely.
I parked just near the gate on SE Tumala Mtn Rd (the curve at top right of this satellite pic):
At the west end of this road, a mess of apocalyptic clearcut debris, the land laid waste, so I headed downhill through loose, sorry pseudo-soil to the trees. I then bushwhacked down to the creek. There were fairly obvious steps where others had done the same, but I wouldn't call it a trail. (There is a sort of trail paralleling the creek halfway up or so, which is extremely awkward to travel due to the alders (?) criss-crossing it all over the place, one's pack catching on them as one ducks, and the limbs snapping back in one's face... One tires of this quickly.)
Once at the creek: lovely! I dropped in just to the west of the large falls.
Spotted: crayfish (moved by quick; I couldn't tell if it was alive or dead), frogs, and of course water skeeters, dragonflies, and a few pesky flies. And later, on the logging road above, along a trickle of water, a dead salamander.
Reader challenge: What kind of frogs are these?
I'll post a couple falls videos if someone tells me the simplest way to do that.
The return bushwhack was a pain as I foolishly wore shorts and got all scratched up. But by following the pseudo-trail I did come up to a lower decommissioned road just above the creek, which leads east to the broken up former bridge that Brian described in his 2012 report. Although tempting, traversing the creek from this point looked a little daunting to me so I called it a day and backtracked west to the larger logging road and then east again, and out. Car still there, tires still inflated, no bullet holes through the windows, so a good day!
