Whetstone Mountain-Battle Ax Creek corrections

[lichenhikin]

This hike guide http://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guide ... _Loop_Hike incorrectly lists the distance as 14.9 miles. It's much closer to 20 (my iPhone says 19.9), and that's without taking the side trail to the summit of Whetstone Mt. Some photos of what turned out to be an extra challenging start to the season posted here!

[mjirving]

I was planning to do this loop in a couple weeks. I find that my iPhone GPS (and I imagine most others have the same problem) is off pretty predictably by 10% due to jitter (it's constantly bouncing around and not perfectly straight). That would put your track at about 18 which is still about 3 miles longer. I too wasn't banking on a hike quite that long.

-GoalTech

[mjirving]

What's the story on the "collapsed bridge"? How'd you deal with that?

[lichenhikin]

Right after the Opal Pools, we followed the Kopetski trail to bypass the collapsed bridge. It reconnects at a totally reasonable bridge. Also, the "half bridge" mentioned in the guide has been repaired!

There's another crossing mentioned in the guide as one easily forded in summer, which is why, I assume, the hike is listed as a summer hike Yesterday, this involved climbing a few feet down the river bank, up to a log, and shimmying across. We wouldn't have signed up for that, either!

[mjirving]

What was the sketchiness factor for that log shimmy?

Thanks.

[lichenhikin]

Assuming you're taller than 5'1" you'll be more comfortable than I just getting on and off of the log — I found that scarier than the crossing. Definitely wouldn't risk trying to walk it, but I felt perfectly safe straddling the log and inching across. The water is a couple feet down and pretty fast, so a fall could be disastrous. Does that answer your question? I think "sketchiness" is different for everyone, but if you can walk up Whetstone Mt, you can probably handle this obstacle.

[mjirving]

Great. Thanks for these important tips!

[bobcat]

Hi lichenhikin:

I've hiked this at least three times and it's not 20 miles! However, it may be longer than what I've posted, so I'm going to check a couple of sources and see if changes need to be made. Thanks for the input!

John

[bobcat]

O.K. Based on four sources, here are the different mileages that come up:

13.4 miles
13.9 miles
14.0 miles
14.5 miles

All of these seem to include the short side trip to the top of Whetstone. My mileage includes a side trip to the Opal Pool and then backtracking to Jawbone Flats. If you took the long switchbacks on the abandoned section of FR 2209 that bypass the tramway and company road to the Ruth Mine, that would add about 0.6 - 0.8 miles, but there's nothing in there that would account for 19.9 miles . . .

If anyone else out there has some tracks of this route, please comment.

[retired jerry]

yeah, GPSes aren't always that accurate.

10% error typical but sometimes more

if you have a GPS track, you could attach it like photos