Oregon Hikers

Light drizzle thru noon and dry after that, but misty the last mile to the summit. Steady stream of hikers up until the Multnomah - Devils rest cutoff. On the devils rest trail, i was pretty much by my self up until the summit. On interesting thing - as I just started heading down from the summit, i heard 1 single weird loud growl, but it did not sound like a dog. I paused and looked all around to see if there was a dog or something, but none. Felt creepy! after that pretty much a uneventful hike back to the TH. The hike was a 8.7 mile RT, ~2570 EG and a little over 4 hours.

mjanardh wrote: ↑

December 1st, 2018, 9:23 pm

as I just started heading down from the summit, i heard 1 single weird loud growl, but it did not sound like a dog. I paused and looked all around to see if there was a dog or something, but none. Felt creepy!

I was planning to do this tomorrow, but great, now I'm already creeped out!

Actually I wonder if there's more wildlife in the area due to less human activity in the last year, or less due to the fire damage. I'm guessing less.

I'm glad to see the summit rocks are still mossy, even though the fire reached all the way up there. Are there any trolls left under the rocks? I guess I'll find out soon.

Did you go down the Foxglove or back east to the Wahkeena Trail? If you did the Foxglove, any signs still on the trees as they are needed at the junctions and the FS does not maintain those trails.

I came back to Wahkeena. but heard earlier that people were able to make out the trail on foxglove, but over grown.

I was happy not to hear any mysterious growling on my hike today!

I'm hearing conflicting reports about whether the areas off the official trails, including the Foxglove network, are still forbidden. The 11/23 Forest Service map shows everything west of Larch Mountain Trail as open again:

https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DO ... 574101.pdf

My understanding is the public postings limit the open areas to 25' of the defined trails. Foxgloves aren't official trails, nor on the list, so they would still be under a restriction, as would BV Plateau

Lurch wrote: ↑

December 3rd, 2018, 2:49 pm

My understanding is the public postings limit the open areas to 25' of the defined trails.

My reading of the map is that the 25' rule only applies in the red shaded areas of the map, which are labeled "area closed." In the latest map, the area west of the Larch Mountain trail is no longer shaded.

Looking again at the latest map, and the listing on the second page, it explicitly says that Palmer Mill Road and Multnomah Basin Road are open. As expected, it says nothing about the Foxgloves either way.