Crawford Oaks Loop & Horsethief Butte - 2016/03/06

[Guy]

We Drove East "Again" today to avoid the rain (I don't think we have ever suffered such a long stretch of wet Sundays!) But again East didn't disappoint we found Sun & big views!


Opening pic'

Our starting point was The Crawford Oaks Trailhead 3 miles east of the Dalles Bridge on the WA side, our goal was a loop from Crawford Oaks up to The Dalles Mt. Ranch & back. As a sign of how desperate we were to escape the rain & hike somewhere new we broke our rule about paying the ripoff Discover pass fee!! Of course my dislike of this fee was only reinforced just minutes after paying it! AFTER paying the $10.00 parking fee we hiked a hundred yards up the trail to find a sign saying "Trail closed ahead" of course there was no mention of this closed trail at the pay station! Talk about "Bait & switch"

Luckily we were armed with Bobcats map and so made a right turn at the top of the falls following the unofficial "Lower Benches" route & so never actually seeing the barbed wire & blocked trail that other disappointed returning hikers told us about.



The "Lower Benches" trail was the best part of the trip for me, lots of big views and wonderful wildflowers.









This little chap was singing his heart out as we past.



We came across this animal bone cairn.



More big views...









This is Browns Island but Heart Island seems more apt!



Here we hugged the park boundary to return to the official trail and make our way up to the Dalles Mt. Ranch for lunch.



Then on the way back from the ranch we hugged Eight Miloe Creek and came across these lost women drivers looking for Multnomah Falls....



Their main problem seemed to be being out of gas, water & oil.....



We walked though some more lovely county on our way back to the trailhead.





We soon found ourselves back at the falls..





A tad over 7 miles & 1300' found us back at the trailhead at 1.00pm. We quickly calculated that we would arrive at the Troutdale "Olde English Pub" before Happy hour and so decided to stop and checkout Horsethief Butte which turned out to be a real treat!



Jumpin' on the Horse Thief Butte Summit!









A great little add on for the day!



All in all about 8.8 miles & 1800' of EG, another great day out on the trail!



A few more pics of the day here.

[greggle]

Rain? It was a beautiful sunny day here in the Portland area. For a few hours!

Looks like a fine day and quick too. Amazing what you can do when you don't have to wait for an old geezer.

[Guy]

We still would have been happy to have a (not so) old geezer along for the day though

[Koda]

those are some beautiful photos and thank goodness you had an alternative plan up your sleeve.

the odometer on that car reads 21255.3 miles. Does that mean when it died (and thus abandond) or did they leave out the 100,000 place indicator thingy, back in those days? What was the average vehicle lifespan in mileage back then?

[VanMarmot]

Great TR and wonderful photos! So that's what sunlight looks like. I wish we'd had the presence of mind to check bobcat's field guide entry before we made our one trip to the ranch - we would have had an even better time than we did. Still, you're lucky you can head "east" for sunlight, whether it's here or Catherine Creek.

[Peder]

Good to see that the wildflowers are coming out, so I assume that you got your money's worth with the Discover Pass.

[drm]

There was a sign about the closure down low, at least there was a couple of weeks ago, but it was quite cryptic and I did not understand it because it used place names I was not familiar with (trail closed above such-and-such viewpoint). It was stapled to the kiosk at the parking lot.

[sprengers4jc]

Great report, Guy! Your little guy singing his heart out is a Western Meadowlark, the Oregon state bird and official 'daily crier' announcing spring . I am glad you found a way around the closure. For others reading this, you can also drive up Dalles Mountain Road and hike from the Ranch itself to avoid the closure (but alas, not the DP fee).

[Guy]

I believe the lower access road was closed for some work being done where it crosses Eight Mile Creek. We could see a back hoe there through the trees on our return. Some people were ignoring the barrier since no work was going on but we spoke to people in the morning and on our return who had parked, paid then walked up the road a little ways to find the sign. We could see no information about the closure on the information board next to where you pay.

sprengers4jc is correct, you can also access the same loop from up at the Ranch.

Other than that it was a grand day out

[drm]

There was a big hole on one side of the access road, clearly a result of some gully-washer. The road was undermined, and if you walked close to the edge, it could collapse and you would fall in. There was plenty of room to walk or ride by on the other side. This was nowhere near the creek. The road probably need a culvert there.