Sunrise as I crossed the Glen Jackson Bridge:(above)
For some reason I got the idea that I needed a real good workout. I haven’t hiked the entire Nick Eaton in a couple of years and also, I was curious if any work had been done on the Wyeth trail. To top that off, I haven’t been to North Lake in years – so, off I went.
I had to get up early for this one and can say that the sunrise can be really beautiful. I think I’ve managed to see it four times this year. Must be a trend.
I didn’t see anyone on the trail until I got almost to North Lake. I saw a few folks camping at North Lake but that was it. This was on a Friday, though.
I can report that enough hikers have been up Nick Eaton, post fire that it is easy to follow all the way. It’s still steep on the last pitch to the highest ridge but it’s a good boot path. For a time after the fire a section after the Deadwood Camp junction was hard to follow. There are 20 trees down along the route between Herman and Ridge Camp but only one of much consequence and that one is at the start: All the rest are between point 3152 and Ridge Camp.
The tree at the start of the Nick Eaton: About 14 or 15 inches diameter.
Kind of an odd beauty in these views:
The sign for Casey Creek still needs work:
Once past Ridge Camp, I took the cross-over trail to Green Point Ridge and hiked north to the junction with the Wyeth Trail. Looks like the FS doesn’t intend to fix Wyeth any time soon. No hint of where the trail was and even the arrow on the sign has been scratched out as you can see in this photo:
Continuing on, the trail needs serious work between the Wyeth junction and North Lake, lots of trees down and lots of really big ones. 30 trees down in this 1.4 miles segment and 9 of them 12” diameter or more. There are another 6 or 7 between North Lake and the junction to Rainy Lake where the next two pics were taken.
This mess is hard to get over:
North Lake:
After a short lunch break it was back up to the Green Point Ridge trail. I considered hitting the summit of Green point Mt. but I was getting tired and still had about 10 miles to go. Still, I should have done it, it was only ¾ mile RT from where I was. Anyway, I’d been there twice so far this summer so I suppose that’s enough.
The obligatory Mt. Hood photo:
The huckleberries were great and salmonberries too:
I took the Gorton Creek trail back and regretted it once I hit the worst section with all the downed trees. I'm getting to know this section pretty well!
Is upper Gorton ever going to get taken care of? Nice workout, though.22.7 miles, 6,000’EG+ (the GPS said 6,589’ EG but I think that’s optimistic. 6k’+ though, for sure.)
The map:
