Casey Creek Loop 6-23-19
Posted: June 25th, 2019, 3:05 pm
The Casey Creek Trail lives, but only just. The Forest Service has scouted the route, but it is a low priority right now with all the other rehabilitation that needs doing. It needs boots on the tread to keep it open, but there are already a few places where you’ll have trouble locating it.
I began rather late, about 9:45 a.m., at the Herman Creek Trailhead but did find one of the last parking spots. This second summer after the fire, wildflowers are now a major feature of the area, especially where there was a crown fire. On Casey Creek and the upper Nick Eaton Trails, which have received no maintenance, this can be a problem as the explosion of sun-loving plants often conceals the trails. Phacelia, penstemon, columbine, and arnica are in full bloom. The most prevalent invasive is smooth hawksbeard, a leggy-looking dandelion-like plant, which has now colonized swaths of the trail verge.
The lower end of Casey Creek still sports its old sign. Not far up, there’s a sawn-off log, which gave me hope. This must, however, just been an extra little gift from the trail crews who were working on the Herman Creek Trail as the rest of the way the trail has that forlorn abandoned look. Most of the fallen trees were down before the fire and are now embellished with a lustrous charcoal hue. Making a traverse less than a quarter mile in was the first time I got off track. The real trail heads through a dense clump of new maple, but a fake trail stays on a level contour and peters out. It took me half an hour to find the tread again. From there, a few switchbacks lead up to a great meadow from which you can now get a glimpse of the Columbia River as well as the Benson Plateau.
From the meadow, the trail generally keeps to the right side of a ridge crest, but I lost the path again in an area of crown fire where the vegetation conceals the tread. I bushwhacked up to the ridge and found the trail again on the crest. From here, there was always a scratch of a tread leading up talus slopes before making the final traverse up to the Nick Eaton crest. A couple of small cairns have been placed at the junction, which still bears the old sign, now illegible, being eaten by a tree.
Then it was a long saunter down Nick Eaton, tracking down to the right at the outcrops and swishing through vast carpets of arnica. At the Deadwood junction, there are four new signs, one of them directing hikers to the Casey Creek Way!
Sunday was a fine cool day: you really don’t want to do Casey Creek, possibly the steepest trail in the Gorge, when it is scorching. Lots of hikers on Herman Creek, no one on Casey Creek Way except me, one person coming up Nick Eaton as I was descending.
I began rather late, about 9:45 a.m., at the Herman Creek Trailhead but did find one of the last parking spots. This second summer after the fire, wildflowers are now a major feature of the area, especially where there was a crown fire. On Casey Creek and the upper Nick Eaton Trails, which have received no maintenance, this can be a problem as the explosion of sun-loving plants often conceals the trails. Phacelia, penstemon, columbine, and arnica are in full bloom. The most prevalent invasive is smooth hawksbeard, a leggy-looking dandelion-like plant, which has now colonized swaths of the trail verge.
The lower end of Casey Creek still sports its old sign. Not far up, there’s a sawn-off log, which gave me hope. This must, however, just been an extra little gift from the trail crews who were working on the Herman Creek Trail as the rest of the way the trail has that forlorn abandoned look. Most of the fallen trees were down before the fire and are now embellished with a lustrous charcoal hue. Making a traverse less than a quarter mile in was the first time I got off track. The real trail heads through a dense clump of new maple, but a fake trail stays on a level contour and peters out. It took me half an hour to find the tread again. From there, a few switchbacks lead up to a great meadow from which you can now get a glimpse of the Columbia River as well as the Benson Plateau.
From the meadow, the trail generally keeps to the right side of a ridge crest, but I lost the path again in an area of crown fire where the vegetation conceals the tread. I bushwhacked up to the ridge and found the trail again on the crest. From here, there was always a scratch of a tread leading up talus slopes before making the final traverse up to the Nick Eaton crest. A couple of small cairns have been placed at the junction, which still bears the old sign, now illegible, being eaten by a tree.
Then it was a long saunter down Nick Eaton, tracking down to the right at the outcrops and swishing through vast carpets of arnica. At the Deadwood junction, there are four new signs, one of them directing hikers to the Casey Creek Way!
Sunday was a fine cool day: you really don’t want to do Casey Creek, possibly the steepest trail in the Gorge, when it is scorching. Lots of hikers on Herman Creek, no one on Casey Creek Way except me, one person coming up Nick Eaton as I was descending.