Oregon Hikers

Chazz mentioned McKenzie spring, and that seemed the obvious comparison for me too. Based on my memory of visits as a child, I think McKenzie has more volume, but Kalama spreads to an impressive width (briefly).

Regarding map location, I've seen it placed right up against the road (close enough to be easily visible from the road), and another odd placement that I can't remember at the moment. And Google is a train wreck, makes no sense at all. Possible everything is just shifted (i.e. road placement is off) but I think it's more than that.

Don, congrats on finding that structure. You seem to have a knack for that. Also, your discovery of that trail confirms that I took a bad route from spring to car, but that's okay, I had more fun finding my own way.

This is all very interesting! We tried to look for the springs a few years back, but were told by a ranger that they got covered over by one of the mud flows, and it was just marsh now. Now we have to follow Don's lead and forge onwards!

K.Wagner wrote: ↑

September 20th, 2018, 11:22 am

This is all very interesting! We tried to look for the springs a few years back, but were told by a ranger that they got covered over by one of the mud flows, and it was just marsh now. Now we have to follow Don's lead and forge onwards!

Naw, not Don's lead - Chip gets all the credit - I wouldn't have even known about this without Chip's TR.

As for what the ranger said: The spring may have indeed been covered but with a few years of water flow, everything washed away and it's now as good as new.

dn

Don,
As I read Chip's TR, he sort of accidentally stumbled onto the springs, whereas you were like a yellow jacket smelling the fried chicken....

K.Wagner wrote: ↑

September 21st, 2018, 7:06 pm

Don,
As I read Chip's TR, he sort of accidentally stumbled onto the springs, whereas you were like a yellow jacket smelling the fried chicken....

Ha!
It's always a surprising honor when I can stumble into something that's new to the more venerable senior explorers, e.g. Don.

you're calling Don senior?

37 months later, I returned to finish Cinnamon Ridge, this time from the closer Kalama Horse Camp end.

Anticipating a labyrinth of unmarked/unmapped roads and trails around the camp, I arrived a little later than is my wont, to take advantage of light. My timing was perfect; I started out as it was just getting light. Those in the know call this a "later than Chip, earlier than Don" start.

A bit of pre-hike research suggested I could legally bring my bike, so I did.

I had downloaded the Field Guide page for a Cinnamon Ridge loop, but fortunately, I soon realized it was CW, and I wanted CCW, so went back to the last junction and headed up Cinnamon Ridge.

As expected, the further I got from camp, the less I had to ponder route variations, and the trail became clear.

Around 2900' I encountered new snow. It rained a bit on the drive, and I didn't even think about that translating to fresh snow on my hike. That was also where my trail ended, and suddenly became a road.

As I got closer to Cinnamon ridgecrest, there was a fecundity of old roads, most of them dead ends. It was fun to explore, and some of them made for loop opportunities. I was surprised to see tracks in the old hard snow I encountered higher, evidence that there's an ungated road somewhere down there.

I continued on Cinnamon Ridge until I knew I had overlapped my previous hike from the other end, although I was never able to identify the exact point where I had turned back before.

On the way back, I took a road down towards Kalama River, hoping it would take me across to a road/trail I could follow back to my car. When I hit the river, I was overjoyed to find my road granted an easy crossing of the river. On the other side, I realized I had been here before! Had I reviewed my earlier TR above, I probably would have realized that would happen.

It was still early, so I followed roads and trails up to the Blue Lake TH, arriving maybe slightly after sunset.

Back at my car, I was still restless and full of energy, and needed to burn off a bunch of eggnog calories, so randomly explored various roads and trails, and part way up fossil trail, until I was finally tired enough to call it a day.

Other parties: Other than drivers, didn't see a single animal all day, except a bug that got into my eggnog.

Not too early for eggnog. Get it over with in November then in Dec. switch to hot buttered rum.

Chip, did you edit out Darigold on the egg nog label? Why?

I was maliciously fired by Darigold in 2014. My rancor has faded enough that I can stomach buying/consuming their products on occasion, but I can't bring myself to admit it publicly.