Wow, I've been meaning to get this trip report posted for a long time. Better late than never!
The day was the winter solstice, and having been experiencing a lot of pain, I chose a short, flat hike.
The hardest part of the hike was finding the trailhead. I drove past both of them a couple times. And even turned around at the second one, not knowing it was a trailhead.
I parked my car at the first trailhead, down a residential gravel road and walked down it to the river level. The first signs of Metro's restoration work, were the orange plastic barriers across side trails. Soon the trail narrowed and went through thick underbrush of fern, creeping Oregon Grape and salal. Perfect for taking pictures of my candy cane snack!
I guess I didn't really want to eat it anyway.
A spur trail took me to a wide beach, where I was able to get a few more pictures of the candy cane before it retired to my pack it out bag. I also go a few good panos of the Sandy River and the typical overcast early winter day.
Back on the trail there were more signs of restoration work. Gigantic piles of logs, which I later learned would be used to make salmon habitat. I also navigated an obstacle course of those wood chip bags used to prevent erosion. It seems that they had been using heavy machinery in this area.
The trail was temporarily detoured through some cottonwoods and the tallest horsetail fern I have ever seen.
I also found some new plant growth coming up through all the decaying leaves. Just the type of thing that I look for on a winter solstice hike.
As the trail climbed back up to the road I passed through a no-man's land of hundreds of bamboo stakes. Presumably to keep the deer away from the newly planted saplings. After passing the rusted out car wrecks I made it to my turnaround point. I decided to to walk back along the road, which was narrow and had very little shoulder between the oncoming traffic and guardrail. Luckily it was a weekday and there were only a few cars!
