I passed a gate on the right that guarded an overgrown tie road, now a running creek, which goes down to the bottom of the canyon and then up to the site of Palmer Mill, a cluster of buildings which was razed in the 1940s when the operation came to a halt. This area belongs to a logging company, but there has been no recent logging on this side of the creek. A new trail sign denoted the convergence of the She-Devil Trail with Palmer Mill Road, but I kept on. Soon, I came to the barrier at the washout on Palmer Mill Road.
Before me was Bridal Veil Creek, braiding in numerous channels where it had washed out the road a number of years ago. A Forest Service renaturalization project took out the culverts on the road, removed the gravel, and strewed about logs to create a wetland. Sedges and rushes now abound where the road once tracked, and the creek, once constrained by engineers, has expanded its explorations. This also made it the most difficult part of the hike, with numerous crossings of Bridal Veil channels on slippery logs. There is a trail of sorts, keeping first to the left side but then constantly crossing and recrossing the creek. Eventually I mounted a massive berm of repurposed gravel to hike the remainder of the road unimpeded and reach the boulder barrier at the junction with Multnomah Basin Road.
I took this road down to the tie trail, then hit the Devils Rest Trail, and went on up to the pile of mossy boulders, which are still, like many of my neighbors in Portland, celebrating Hallowe’en.
Below Devils Rest, I headed left on the Red Shorts Cut, first noting a sign that has replaced the Red Shorts and perhaps a signal of some kind of feud? The alluring she-devil at the junction with Devils Fork still poses coyly. Then I passed a sign for “Smith Road”, but was unsure if this led to the She-Devil Trail, so I kept going down Red Shorts, passing an ancient chassis decorating the forest floor. At some point, I decided that “Smith Road” was, in fact, verily the She-Devil, and returned to plunge down that trail.
This took me down into some lovely woods and eventually to the abandoned Smith Road, where a sign confirmed my judgement. Following Smith Road on the She-Devil, I noted a mileage sign for Devils Rest at a trail that angled off to the right.
I thought, “What the heck. It’s in the right direction,” and took it. There was more lovely forest, and then evidence accrued to ensure me that this was the infamous Vacuum Cleaner Trail, with the old vacuum remains neatly placed by the trail. Then onward through luxurious, quiet woods past another vacuum cleaner and all sorts of “artifacts”, i.e. scofflaw trash. After crossing a little creek, there was another sign, of familiar artistry (you’ll find other such art works on Archer Mountain, for example), that I couldn’t ignore.
So . . . along the Bullet Car Trail, under mossy maple bowers and over Ariel’s Footbridge. I couldn’t fathom why a mermaid would need a footbridge (since I'm pretty certain they don't have feet), but I deduced that perhaps some of them come up this creek to spawn. The bullet car, a 1941 Chrysler, is disappearing into the moss and native blackberry. You can tell it’s been there a while because a whole alder tree grew through it.
Back to the Vacuum Cleaner Trail, which descends a wide ridge crest, mostly on old road beds. When the track turns down towards Palmer Mill Road, I branched off on a narrow, steep old logging road to rejoin Palmer Mill only about 100 yards from my car.
CAUTION: All of this is on trail, but less than a mile of it is on official trails. Wander at your own risk. It is easy to get disoriented in this area.
