A nice big Badger Creek Loop, 2020/07/31 - 2020/08/02

This forum is used to share your experiences out on the trails.
Post Reply
rllcat
Posts: 9
Joined: July 11th, 2017, 2:11 pm

A nice big Badger Creek Loop, 2020/07/31 - 2020/08/02

Post by rllcat » August 7th, 2020, 12:44 pm

My partner and I were able to get permits for the Wonderland trail in mid-late September, so we’re trying to get in a bunch of shake out/training hikes before we go. After an awesome one-nighter on the Fifteenmile Loop a month ago, getting back to that area seemed like a great idea. We don’t own a car and rely on Zipcar for getting out into the woods, so we decided the Fret Creek TH would be a good place to start given the decent (paved) road to there and the fact we were already aware of the road conditions (its right around the corner from Fifteen Mile campground). I have been really wanting to swim, so wanted to do a loop incorporating as many lakes as possible - seemed like we could get in Oval Lake, Badger Lake, and maybe Jean Lake (which we ended up not getting to) in 2 nights/3 days.

Friday: We’re lucky to still have jobs, but that does make getting out a little harder. Thankfully work let us out a bit early, and we made it to the TH by 5. There were a few other cars. Headed up the trail surrounded by lots of not-quite-ripe huckleberries (😭). Trail was in good condition, only a little bit of blowdown, not hard to get around. Saw 4 people headed back down. At Oval Lake there were 2 tents set up. We dropped our packs and did some exploring… and also noted the sudden wildfire scent and that the lake had gotten pretty smoky. Uh oh. The suddenness of it made us a little worried (combined with an experience a few years ago where we ended up pretty close to a new fire).

Since we’d only done a small bit of hiking and we had plenty of daylight, we decided to leave our packs and head up the trail and onto the ridge to see what we could make sure there wasn’t anything worrying nearby. Headed right on the Divide Trail (towards Lookout Mountain) til we got to a nice spot on the ridge with great views, and no signs of nearby fires! It was extremely windy though - clambered up onto some rocks and had to hold on because it felt like the wind was going to blow us away. There was a decent campsite, but definitely not somewhere I’d want to stay with that much wind.

Image
(Silhouette of Hood in the evening light)

Image
(Cool rocks with SE views)

Back to Oval Lake, and the smoke had definitely dissipated - seems like the wind just pushed some smoke into the hollow temporarily. Set up our tents on the south end of the lake at a nice secluded spot. The access to the lake is very marshy, and it seemed like the water quality itself would be very silty. My map indicates that there’s a stream coming out of the lake, but we could see no signs of that. So we headed back down the trail ~15-20 minutes to the last creek crossing. Of course that was down the steepest section of the trail! On our way down we saw a juvenile-looking deer with partly-grown antlers.

Image
(Oval lake from our campsite on Saturday morning)

Saturday: We’re not morning people and still working on getting our morning camp routine down, so didn’t get on the trail til 9:30ish. Headed back to the Divide Trail intersection, and this time headed left towards Flag Point. It was cloudy, but the clouds were pretty high, so we were able to get great views from Palisades Point. Some nice campsites up along the ridge, but no water and wouldn’t want to be up there with a lot of wind. I really loved this whole section - the clouds and the high ridge and the views and the wild flowers. A small bit of blowdown, only one spot that was slightly hard to get over. It felt so good to be out there.

Image
(Palisades)

Image
(South towards Jefferson and Sisters)

Image
(Adams peaking up)

Got to the intersection with the road just as some folks in a Subaru pulled up - they were planning on hiking to Lookout Mountain. We headed down the road to the Flag Point Lookout to check it out. The guy manning the lookout for the summer invited us up, and we got to check out his setup, hear about what he does (he’s been the fire lookout there for 10 years), chat about the trails and our plans, enjoy the great view, and meet his 15 year old dog, who was super sweet and fell asleep by our feet… and groaned every time he mentioned “hiking” or “stairs” 😆.

Image
(Hood from the tower)

Back to the junction, and now there were 3 cars parked. We started our trek towards Badger Lake on the Badger Creek Cutoff Trail. I knew from reading on here that it’s not the most-trafficked or best-maintained trail… and that’s definitely the case. Quite a bit of blowdown requiring at least one time of taking our packs of completely, plus a couple spots where the trail disappeared entirely in brush. We had some nice gashes on our legs by the time we got to the bottom of the trail (“I fought the log and the log won,” a good theme song for this hike). We encountered one person (with small dog) headed up the trail.

Image
(Trail? what trail?)

Image
(Blowdown with partner for size)

Image
(anyone know what this is? looked like a loop for a cable coming out of this tree?)

On the plus side, the huckleberries were ripe over here, as we got further down! A nice treat to accompany our lunch. Then onto the Badger Creek Trail - I think we encountered 4 people (2 groups of 2). Plus more huckleberries and some wild strawberries, and even a couple perfectly ripe thimbleberries. Some blowdown, mostly before the intersection with the Gumjuwac trail, not nearly as bad as on the Cutoff trail.

Badger Lake was a welcome sight, around 4pm, and the clouds had dissipated - it was perfect weather there. Lots of people, but the lake is so big that we were able to find a nice spot on the beach to hang out and swim and have second lunch. Originally my plan was to continue on from here and camp either at Jean Lake (doing a bit of a bushwack to get there) or somewhere up on Gunsight Ridge, because I had read about how busy Badger Lake can be, but it was so nice and there were some decently secluded campsites still available, so we decided to just camp there. Unfortunately the wind picked up a bit so we only went swimming the one time, but it was so perfect in the water, cool but not too cold.

Image
(Afternoon at the lake)

Relaxed in camp for a bit before we decided to explore the lake some more. Headed along the beach on the NW side until we could go no further due to trees down (so sad, I really wanted to make it the whole way around). There was some interesting scat, filled with shell fish parts (crawfish in the lake).

Image
(shell-filled scat)

Image
(From the NW shore, looking NE)

Headed back the way we came, then across the dam to the campground area and along the trail on the SE side. The trail here exists for a lot longer than the other side, which very quickly becomes covered in brush (why we took the beach). Still couldn’t quite make it to the end, where it looked like there was a meadowy trail - downed trees and brush blocked the way. But we looked out and saw something moving through the water… a turtle? No, it looked like a mammal - an otter!! I’d never seen an otter in the wild before. It was kinda shy, but we sat still for a bit and watched it diving into the water and swimming on its back to eat. Looking up otter scat once we got home - yup, pretty sure that’s what we saw. Alas I couldn't get a good photo of it. We also saw what I’m pretty sure was an osprey, and then a bald eagle, and then ravens chasing the bald eagle 😂. The ravens in general had LOTS to say.

Image
(Sunday morning at the lake)

Got a little bit of an earlier start Sunday - we had to get the Zipcar back in Portland by 7pm. Up the Divide Trail to Gumjuwac Saddle, again a bit of blowdown but not too bad. Saw 2 people heading down the trail. There was a nice campsite on a flat spot where the trail comes around a point in the ridge (maybe halfway up or a little further). We crossed water in two places, although I don’t quite remember the location relative to the camp, I think it wouldn’t be too far.

At Gumjuwac Saddle there were some folks on dirt bikes along the road. We continued on the Divide Trail towards High Prairie/Lookout Mountain, with gorgeous views and wildflowers.

Image
(Views south and east)

Image
(A little wet spot with flowers)

Image
(Not sure what flower this is? But very pretty/cool - purple spikies coming out of cone-like things)

At the point where the trail switch bags, on the side of a fairly steap slope, we totally lost it. It disappeared into some manzanita, and we continued on along what we thought was the trail… until it was very apparent that it wasn’t. After some bushwacking/scrambling we doubled back and realized where we had missed it. I tried to make it a bit clearer with branches/some improvised arrows, but given how covered up it was I’m not sure how much that helped.

Image
(Yeah, there's actually a trail there)

A lot more people on the trail once we reached the first High Prairie loop intersection, and even more at the top of Lookout Mountain. But it’s a big enough area up there that we could have a good spot for lunch and be very socially distanced. The views were amazing - it was so clear, and we could see ALL the mountains - Hood was right up in our faces, plus Adams, Rainier, Helens, and Jefferson and Sisters (and others I don’t know even know the names of) to the south, lots of views of desert to the east, plus back to Badger Lake where we had started the day. I love being able to look back to where I was and marvel at how I got to here.

Image
(Hi mountain friend! - Hood)

Image
(Not a bad lunch view - Rainier and Adams)

Image
(Jefferson with Badger Lake in the foreground)

I really don’t like out-and-backs, so rather than heading maybe the more obvious way (or at least the shorter route) back on the Divide Trail to the Fret Creek Trail, we headed down High Prairie. This was so civilized after the trails we had been on! Almost like a road. My map indicates some water in the meadows, but no dice - it was dried up. Alas, for I really wanted to soak my aching feet in the water for a bit, plus we were running a little low on drinking water… at least we were mostly headed down hill at this point.

Image
(The road-trail and meadows)

Image
(No water, oh well. Pretty meadow.)

At the TH we turned right on FR 4420 for a mile. This was pretty easy walking, and we only encountered a few mountain bikers, no cars. Mostly dusty dirt, not too much gravel. We walked on this for probably about a mile, til we picked up the Lookout Mountain trail. I know hikers/mountain bikers don’t always get along, but in this case - bless mountain bikers and their trail clearing - it was in such good condition. And again, only ran into a couple bikers - headed up the opposite direction from us.

This whole area was so pretty, and at the meadows where the Lookout Mountain trail intersects with the Fifteenmile trail there were some trickling streams (with nice bridges over them)! We soaked our feet for a bit and refilled our water. It was a nice break. Then we headed down the Fifteenmile trail, through meadows and around a point where we got another nice view of Hood and back towards Lookout Mountain where we had just been.

Image
(That's where we were!)

Met two hikers on the Fifteenmile trail, out for a quick jaunt from the campground. And then we were back at the campground and our car! Soaked our feet again in Fret Creek, washed off some dirt, and cooled off our cans of coconut water that had been sitting in the car before heading home.

All in all an excellent and gorgeous adventure, probably about 20 miles in total. Oh! And very few (biting) bugs. I ended up with maybe 4 bug bites total. I think the wind kept them pretty well away.

Aimless
Posts: 1922
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:02 pm
Location: Lake Oswego

Re: A nice big Badger Creek Loop, 2020/07/31 - 2020/08/02

Post by Aimless » August 7th, 2020, 2:02 pm

Sounds like a great hike!

(anyone know what this is? looked like a loop for a cable coming out of this tree?)

That's an old glass insulator for a phone line that once serviced a fire lookout somewhere in that area. Most of these date back before 1950 and the phone lines and most of the lookouts have been removed. The more trails you hike, you'll see these now and again. There used to be lots of fire lookouts.

User avatar
bobcat
Posts: 2764
Joined: August 1st, 2011, 7:51 am
Location: SW Portland

Re: A nice big Badger Creek Loop, 2020/07/31 - 2020/08/02

Post by bobcat » August 7th, 2020, 3:19 pm

Epic loop! You got a good chunk of the Badger Creek Wilderness under your belt. That cutoff trail only seems to get a log out every few years. I've been on it in good and bad times . . .
Aimless wrote:
August 7th, 2020, 2:02 pm
(Not sure what flower this is? But very pretty/cool - purple spikies coming out of cone-like things)
It's American sawwort (Saussaurea americana).

That shell-filled scat is interesting. I'd say raccoon since they are practiced fishers, but maybe a coyote has learned to specialize . . . or has an otter found its way to Badger Lake?

leiavoia
Posts: 228
Joined: April 24th, 2015, 9:53 pm

Re: A nice big Badger Creek Loop, 2020/07/31 - 2020/08/02

Post by leiavoia » August 7th, 2020, 4:47 pm

Otter was also my first guess.

I saw one ice fishing on frozen Pansey Lake in the Bull of the Woods last November early in the morning. They do exist!

User avatar
walrus
Posts: 217
Joined: July 9th, 2014, 7:24 am

Re: A nice big Badger Creek Loop, 2020/07/31 - 2020/08/02

Post by walrus » August 7th, 2020, 7:35 pm

The trail up to Jean Lake has even more down trees than the Badger Creek cutoff and you're not the only one who has lost the trail through the burn on the Divide Trail.....

Super jealous of your otter! A few years ago when we were up at Badger Lake, we watched an osprey catch a fish, a bald eagle swoop down to steal it and then just as the osprey was starting to get away, a peregrine swooped out of what seemed like nowhere! Poor thing. They were flying into the sun and too high to see much, but I choose to believe that she got away with her hard-earned fish.

Post Reply