Palmer Mill Stream Restoration Area

Discussions and Trip Reports for off-trail adventures and rediscovering lost trails
Post Reply
User avatar
arlohike
Posts: 237
Joined: April 28th, 2014, 8:28 pm

Palmer Mill Stream Restoration Area

Post by arlohike » February 6th, 2022, 8:58 pm

In the last year, I’ve been getting reacquainted with the Bridal Veil Plateau and the old forest roads that were decommissioned after the Eagle Creek Fire. The only part of this I hadn’t revisited yet was the lower end of the decommissioned section of Palmer Mill Road. I noticed on Strava Heatmaps that some people have been bicycling through that segment. So a friend and I drove up Palmer Mill from the Angel’s Rest upper parking lot today, parked at the barriers and started hiking up to check it out.

Past the car barriers, someone has been maintaining Palmer Mill very well, cutting brush and clearing logs. There’s even a substantial mudslide covering the road, through which a path has been dug. We found several smaller trees blocking the road and cleared them with folding saws.

The decommissioning starts about 3 miles up (A), just before the old quarry. We found this to be unlike the other roads in the area that have had felled trees and brush laid across them. Here, the road bed itself has been obliterated and the creek has been left to flow through the area in a series of small, crisscrossing streams, under a layer of large felled trees. Other than the flat quarry area, the terrain on either side was too steep to walk through, but walking up the road/creek wasn’t too bad — a combination of log hopping and stream hopping — although more difficult with fresh snow covering the logs. Getting through here while carrying a bike would be very tedious, but maybe it’s easier in the summertime when there’s less water in the creek.

After a few hundred yards, we could see a section of road bed rise from the creek and come to a six foot tall earth barrier, and we hoped the road would return to relative normalcy after that. But after climbing up the barrier, it was just more of the same on the other side. At that point we were only a third of the way to the Multnomah Basin Road junction (B), and it didn’t seem worth continuing. So rather than backtracking, we headed up the north bank to bushwhack toward the east/west forest road that runs between Palmer Mill Road the Devil’s Rest Trail. The gradient was less steep here and leveled off about halfway toward that road, and the woods here were pretty clear and easy to walk through. We picked up a mylar balloon toward the top, and hit the old road right at the “truck tire junction” that I saw on an earlier trip here (C).

From there, we turned west and followed the road back downhill, sometimes in the road bed and sometimes beside it, depending on how much debris was in the road. Eventually we came to the spot that confused my navigational sense the first time I came back here after the fire (D). The road veered to the right, toward the Foxglove Trail west of Devil’s Rest, but we needed a left turn to take us back to Palmer Mill. But there was no detectable left or straight option, so we followed the road to the right. After a few minutes, we reached the barely detectable junction with the trail that connects to Foxglove (E), and immediately after that, the road we were on swung around to the left (southwest). So now it made sense again, and we continued on that now-familiar downhill road toward Smith Road.

I remembered this section being one of the worst in terms of debris on the road, but this time it didn’t seem as bad as I remembered it. The worst part was new blackberry shoots growing up through the debris and grabbing our pants or wrapping around our feet. But a highlight was seeing the old truck cab again, which I missed last time I came through here. The geocache was still inside, and the logbook had been signed a few times since the fire.

The debris gradually decreased and the road was easily walkable at Smith Road (F), where we continued down, eventually reaching a flagged user path that diverted around another stretch of debris at the south end of Smith Road and rejoined the road within sight of Palmer Mill Road. From there it was an easy two miles back to the car, during which we saw what looked like a Great Horned Owl fly above us, land in a tree and then fly away again a moment later. To our surprise there were three other cars at the barriers when we got back, so we weren’t the only ones enjoying this unique area today!

P.S. After getting home, I looked up the official document about this stream restoration project. It says some of the felled trees could have be unused trees from other projects, including for Eagle Creek Fire firebreaks, not necessarily trees that were cut down for this project. It also acknowledges the user trails and volunteer trail maintenance in the area, and says the project was designed to allow hikers to continue using this route informally, while curbing motorized vehicle use, like the dirt bikes that people used to take up here.

Screen Shot 2022-02-06 at 8.07.30 PM.png
Our route today
IMG_2726 (1).jpeg
My buddy preparing to clear a tree from Palmer Mill Road
IMG_2734.jpeg
While he crossed the creek to the quarry, I tried walking along the north slope, but soon dropped that idea
IMG_2745 (1).jpeg
The view upstream from the middle of the creek bed
IMG_2747 (1).jpeg
An earth barrier at the point we bailed out
IMG_2749 (1).jpeg
Looking back through relatively clear forest after climbing up toward the middle road
IMG_2752 (1).jpeg
A mylar balloon, with a handwritten message to Carlos from Puchi
IMG_2757 (1).jpeg
Tired dog using the truck cab as a temporary doghouse while we signed the geocache log
IMG_2759 (1).jpeg
Approaching Smith Road, the large logs dwindled to smaller branches strewn across the road
TrailCheck (iOS / Android)
Elevation Tracker (iOS / Apple Watch)

User avatar
arlohike
Posts: 237
Joined: April 28th, 2014, 8:28 pm

Re: Palmer Mill Stream Restoration Area

Post by arlohike » February 7th, 2022, 8:46 am

I've been looking at the historical photos in this post and am amazed to think about how the area has gone "back to nature" since then. Don Nelson explained here that there was more logging in the 70's, so I'm guessing some or all of the road beds I've been following are from that era and don't go through the town or mill sites.
TrailCheck (iOS / Android)
Elevation Tracker (iOS / Apple Watch)

User avatar
Charley
Posts: 1834
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm
Location: Milwaukie

Re: Palmer Mill Stream Restoration Area

Post by Charley » April 4th, 2022, 11:48 am

Years ago, I used to ride my bike up Palmer Mill Road, either from Highway 30 or from that creekside parking area. The area they decommissioned was an eroded mess, but mostly passable on a bike.
IMG_6504.jpg
IMG_6503.jpg
IMG_6501.jpg
IMG_6500.jpg
IMG_6499.jpg
IMG_6498.jpg
IMG_6493.jpg
I'm curious about people the people apparently riding it now. I've done longer hike-a-bikes. . . but I'd find this an odd destination.

That said, in spite of the thousands of miles of roads in East Multnomah County, the Bull Run closure, it's actually kind of difficult to find long, fun, gravel and dirt riding that's legal, so maybe it's worth it for the hardy.
Believe it or not, I barely ever ride a mountain bike.

Post Reply