In keeping with the project to check out all trails in the Gorge as they reopen after the 2017 fire, I set out from Cascade Locks and walked west on the Gorge Trail. The first part of this section, between the PCT and the junction with Historic Columbia River Highway at the tunnel under the freeway (finished in 1998), was always a bit of an orphan trail, little hiked, and now with much of the canopy burned off, an even more inviting paradise for poison oak. There’s one rocky viewpoint, which takes in the landslide faces of Table Mountain and Greenleaf Peak, before the descent to the HCRHT.
The HCRHT here served as the Gorge Trail for several years until components were engineered for a through paved trail. I passed, apparently, through Sheridan State Park, and then hit the area of the big January 2021 landslide, which buried the trail only two weeks after it had reopened. I paused at the beginning of the Ruckel Creek Trail, sadly overgrown and a tough trail to restore now that over three years have gone by. On the way back, I paid homage to Ruckel Creek Falls in its shady, cool wood of maples.
I then took the Gorge Trail up around the deserted Eagle Creek Campground, paid more homage to Big John at the car-less day use trailhead (Big John, a 1916 artifact, was the Forest Service’s first flush toilet restroom), squeezed around the barriers at the fish hatchery, and hiked up the off-ramp over the HCHRT’s Eagle Creek Bridge, with its salmon-watching overlook.
To take the 0.7 mile portage road, I knew it would best to start at the west end, so continued up the “staircase” to pick up the HCHRT as it passed around Tooth Rock. Approaching the power substation east of the Tooth Rock Trailhead, I spotted a small “Tanner Butte Trail” sign that survived the fire (you wouldn’t necessarily see it if you weren’t looking) and surveyed the prospect of the portage traverse.
The old wagon road, constructed in 1856, was the first on the Oregon side to circumvent the Cascades on the Columbia by heading up over the back side of Tooth Rock, at whose base the Columbia lapped in times of high water. It was a 425-foot climb for the wagons from river level, begun by one W.R. Kilborn in 1855 and improved by Joseph Ruckel and Harrison Olmstead.
"The advantages of the newly constructed portage road were set out in the ... advertisement which ran for a short time in the Portland Weekly Oregonian, commencing with the issue of February 9, 1856, and a news item in that issue stated that "a new road around the portage of the Cascades on the Oregon side has been completed and goods are now being transported on this side with safety and dispatch." (F.B. Gill: Oregon’s First Railway, the Oregon Portage Railroad at the Cascades of the Columbia River. 1924)
By 1859, a portage railroad (the first railroad in Oregon) had been built around the base of Tooth Rock using a trestle, However, part of the trestle was swept away by spring floods that same year. By 1861, the railroad had pretty much replaced the wagon road as the main means of transportation around the Cascades.
Hikers, however, used the portage road to access Wauna Viewpoint long before the construction of the Gorge Trail in the area. When vehicle access up Tanner Creek Road was closed in the early 21st century, the portage road became a somewhat shorter way to hike up to the Tanner Butte Trailhead and appeared in several guidebooks. It was never an official trail, however, and no attention has been paid to it since the fire.
A few steps in, I immediately realized I had come woefully unprepared (but not unprepared enough to contemplate turning back). I had known there would be many downed trees, and of course had my pruning saw with me. I also had long baggy cargo pants, perfect for wading through all kinds of vegetation. What I did not have were a machete, thick gloves, and a long-sleeved shirt. The old road bed is in its fourth spring of untended rampant growth. Elderberry are now six feet high, and the willow and thimbleberry are four feet. These are easy to brush around. Everything, however, is laced together with an unholy alliance of thorny vines, namely trailing blackberry, Armenian blackberry, and the bloodiest of all, blackcap raspberry, all sun lovers that flourish in disturbed areas when there’s no shady canopy. So it was just me and my pruning saw, wielded as a machete, slashing, hacking, parrying almost every step of the way. Luckily, it’s spring and the new vines were soft and easy to dispatch although my hands and forearms were running little red rivulets by the time I was done.
I made very slow progress upward, also sawing off obstructing branches on fallen trees. I saw no sign of the connector that branched the short distance up to Tanner Creek Road. At the high point of the track, I headed up to Tooth Rock’s jagged dentures for lunch, enjoying the break but mindful of the summit’s welcoming skirt of poison oak. The east descent of the track was easier. A rootball has taken out most of the road bed at one point, but there’s also a relatively unobstructed stretch of about 200 yards (there was still a canopy). I couldn’t find the old descent path from the road to the HCRHT above the staircase near Eagle Creek, but it’s just a short skitter down the scree.
The CRGNSA needs to take this one on and make it official (including the short connector up to Tanner Creek Road and the Gorge Trail). There's a bench already provided, and the main work is the bucking and brushing, best done in the off season when there are fewer other trail projects.
Tooth Rock Portage Road/Gorge Trail/HCRH Trail 4-21-21
Re: Tooth Rock Portage Road/Gorge Trail/HCRH Trail 4-21-21
Do you think Tanner Creek Road will ever re-open? To either auto or pedestrian traffic? There's one of those post-Eagle-Creek-Fire "Area closed to all use" signs on the gate.
I'm just guessing that there's little chance (unfortunately) that there will be any rehabilitation of older road grades like the Portage Road, considering how overgrown Trail 400 is, and that even as important a route as Tanner Creek Road remains closed to use.
I'm just guessing that there's little chance (unfortunately) that there will be any rehabilitation of older road grades like the Portage Road, considering how overgrown Trail 400 is, and that even as important a route as Tanner Creek Road remains closed to use.
Believe it or not, I barely ever ride a mountain bike.
- retired jerry
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Re: Tooth Rock Portage Road/Gorge Trail/HCRH Trail 4-21-21
The road was closed before the fire
Re: Tooth Rock Portage Road/Gorge Trail/HCRH Trail 4-21-21
It's been closed to public vehicular traffic for about 20 years I think. As far as opening the Tanner Butte Trail goes, I haven't heard any mention. However, TKO has begun work on the Wauna Viewpoint Trail. I've heard mention of Bell Creek, Oneonta, and Nesmith Point but now there are all these other places like the Clackamas to refurbish.
It's possible that for some of the real backcountry trails, they'll just open them and let boots do the work (as with Casey Creek Trail).
Fixing the portage road should be considered seriously since it's in an "open" area and is a viable connection at least to Wauna Viewpoint as well as a good little loop around Tooth Rock. No slide areas or steep scree to deal with.
It's possible that for some of the real backcountry trails, they'll just open them and let boots do the work (as with Casey Creek Trail).
Fixing the portage road should be considered seriously since it's in an "open" area and is a viable connection at least to Wauna Viewpoint as well as a good little loop around Tooth Rock. No slide areas or steep scree to deal with.