Ramona Falls 6/1/2021

[squidvicious]

Arrived at the TH just before 8 am. The potholes on the road in were pretty bad, and it's a bit more difficult to swerve around them now with big debris piles along the side of the road. There were a LOT of trees down! Doing it pretty much blind in the morning sun glare doesn't help.

Trip reports on alltrails gave me the impression that the river crossing was basically the same as it has been the last couple years. This was definitely NOT the case. The river looks scoured out, and there's no trace of anything from last year. For people comfortable with river crossings and balancing on logs without handholds it's fine. I am not that person.

There are two options to cross if you mean to stay dry (not two good options, just literally two places). Where the trail spits you out there is a log crossing pretty much right in front of you, angled on a sharp diagonal upstream to make the crossing as long as possible. Nothing to put your hands on, and too low to sit and scoot without dragging your feet in the water. It also looked perilously skinny, although that was apparently just the anxiety talking, since when I took another look on the way back it had grown quite a bit bigger.

A little bit upstream there's a tangle of logs jutting out from the bank. One of these is a stout, short log angling down into the water. You can walk down this, hop over to another log perpendicular to it, then step off onto the rocks. There's another bit of tree overhead in front of you that you can mostly brace your hands on. This is where I crossed on the way up. Still pretty anxiety-inducing for me, but not too hard once I committed to doing it. I thought it would be easier in the other direction, but once I got there on the way back it didn't look so great. There was already a line up of people taking off their shoes to scoot across the other log with their feet in the water, so I joined them. Could not manage to get all the sand off my feet before putting my shoes and socks back on, so I'm glad that was just for the return trip.

The trail itself is in good condition. I understand up to just a few weeks ago one side of the loop was still impassible with masses of downed trees, but it's cleared now. I was expecting it to look pretty devastated and depressing, but I was pleasantly surprised. I forgot bug spray, which I came to regret, but got away with just a couple bites.

The falls were flowing really full and lovely. Unfortunately, I did not get to enjoy them. This was the crappy part of the day. There was a group of people up there with about a half dozen wolf hybrids, running loose. As soon as I stepped into the area in front of the falls, a couple of them ran at me barking. I backed off and called out to the group, "Can you hold your dogs, please?" They kind of glanced over and ignored me. And the second and third times I asked. But the dogs at least had backed off a little, so I found a spot to sit down. I took out an apple to eat, and bam, the dog (wolf) is on me again. Jump up, pissed now, and again asked them to hold their dog. Pretty sure I omitted the "please" that time. One girl at least acknowledges me. Specifically, she said, "You took out food, what did you expect?" Uh... Then another one came over and politely explained to me that this is an off leash area and, in a nutshell, the dogs can do whatever the hell they want. Yeah, that's not how it works.

So I packed up my stuff and left. Got some good exercise, mostly enjoyed my hike, did not get to enjoy the fruits of my efforts because dog owners are sociopaths.

[Chip Down]

Somewhere on the www is a dog-owners forum where somebody posted about a jerk at Ramona Falls who had the nerve to eat an apple, and then complained when dogs jumped him.

[gallione11]

We did the loop on Saturday; thankfully mostly dog free. I'm not a dog lover, but the worst thing about dogs are terrible owners, and sadly, when hiking that seems to be a 50/50 mix. Between not obeying leash laws, leaving bags of dog crap everywhere and just not having their dog under control when passing, too many owners are like this. One of the reasons I love my trip to Rainier every year since you can't bring dogs on the trails.

Anyway, the thing that struck me most about the hike, was around miles 2 and 5 doing the loop counter clockwise, there just seemed to be a huge area of downed trees, while the rest seemed pretty much untouched. The result? Some pretty decent views of Hood on the way up. Oh, and that bridged creek crossing when you're nearly done the loop portion that used to be under pretty decent cover is no longer that way. Tons of trees down there, including some pieces of the bridge damaged.

[smithsummit]

And... from the same "mile 5" location yesterday...

[squidvicious]

Picture of the other crossing area up now.

[TwoPaw]

Then another one came over and politely explained to me that this is an off leash area and, in a nutshell, the dogs can do whatever the hell they want.

Leash or no leash, dogs don't really belong in these places, especially Wildnerness Areas. Mt. Shasta banned them and apparently Rainer too and that's how it should be.

Take your dog to a city park or the Sandy Delta or numerous state parks or the beach where they can terrorize nesting birds. Having a dog doesn't give you rights that no responsible human parent would extend to one's own child.

[Aimless]

in a nutshell, the dogs can do whatever the hell they want

Maybe, but only if I can do whatever the hell I want to the dog. Hmmm. I'm starting to think this could be a problematic path to continue down.

[Webfoot]

I wonder if they would have been as casual toward a hunter with a rifle over his shoulder and a pistol on his hip. Things could certainly go very sideways.

[Chip Down]

I wonder if they would have been as casual toward a hunter with a rifle over his shoulder and a pistol on his hip. Things could certainly go very sideways.

If it was me, they'd just laugh and threaten to take my gun away. I'm not very intimidating.

[Webfoot]

I'm not very intimidating.

You sure about that? A man covered in grime from miles of bushwacking, with an ice axe in July and drunk?