Cottonwood Canyon - March 8, 2014

[mattisnotfrench]

Even though it's a bit late I thought some people would appreciate more intel on the new state park on the John Day River, named Cottonwood Canyon State Park. In short: it's wonderful! It's very similar to the Deschutes River Trail but it feels a bit wilder, and it's certainly far more remote. It's a long drive from Portland to the park (about 2 hours and 15 minutes from my house in inner SE) but once you get there you really feel like you've gone somewhere.

If you want more information, here's the link to the State Park page: http://www.oregonstateparks.org/index.c ... parkId=195

Here's the hiker map on the signboard at the trailhead:

We got a fairly early start despite the long drive. We decided to follow the the Pinnacles Trail on the left bank, which is hiker-only as best I can tell. It's an old Jeep road and it barely changes elevation in 5 miles. Most of my photos are of the road.

The sun never really came out all day despite promises of beautiful weather, but we didn't really mind that much. It never poured on us the way it did elsewhere further west.

Sagebrush is extremely common on this hike, as you might imagine.

There was a sand dune of sorts too - it reminded me of that thread here a couple years ago about the supposed sand dune near the mouth of the Deschutes that nobody ever really found:

After about 5 miles the trail more or less ends below a cliff above the river. We had lunch here as it started to sprinkle on us. I supposed you could continue downstream from here but I'll just wait until they finish whatever trail construction is planned.

We hiked back down the trail (but upstream) much faster, but the hike was so easy we barely broke a sweat. The photo conditions were a little better on the way back:

All in all it was an outstanding day, capped off by pizza and beer at Double Mountain - the best way to end any hike in the Gorge and nearby area. Even though the hike was fairly easy (exactly 10 miles out and back, but less than 400 feet of cumulative elevation gain) we still devoured our pizza. I got to say it was a good day!

[kelkev]

Looks great, Matt! It's on my list to visit in the near future. Thanks for sharing!

[woodswalker]

Great! I'll be heading out there soon.

[4DMTNS]

How were the ticks?

[mattisnotfrench]

How were the ticks?

We found none but I'm sure they were around there, waiting for us somewhere.

[mtnhiker56]

Regarding the sand dune topic..there used to be a sand dune that covered a lane of I-84 every year about 4 miles east of The Dalles, but the state hauled a lot of the sand away and planted native vegetation to cover the dune. You can still see part of the dune there now. The work was done back in the mid-80's.

[miah66]

Double Mountain always caps a satisfying day.

[Rubicon03]

My parents are camp hosts there at the state park. Can't wait to get out there for some hiking.

[dspangler]

I'm the Park Ranger out at Cottonwood and we are in the process of developing our trail system. It's great to see so many people are finding us and enjoying themselves.

Please feel free to ask any questions about Cottonwood.

Thanks