Table Mountain Cliffs with Don Nelsen and his son Paul

This forum is used to share your experiences out on the trails.
User avatar
Eric Peterson
Posts: 4097
Joined: May 11th, 2009, 5:39 am
Location: Oregon
Contact:

Table Mountain Cliffs with Don Nelsen and his son Paul

Post by Eric Peterson » June 25th, 2011, 6:56 pm

Exciting day spent with Don Nelsen and his son Paul exploring the cliffs of Table MT. Don also took us over to the
Greenleaf slide, wow! Also Went up Greenleaf falls to his rope and got the GPS mark for it now, cool stuff.
Don and Paul were a ton of fun! :)

Met at the Aldrich Butte TH at 9, also was supposed to meet up with Pablo but that didn't connect for some reason.

Hiked up Aldrich Butte access road until the Carpenter Lake split which turns into Two Chiefs some mile or so to where
it intersects the PCT.

PCT work crew was out in force doing some nice trail maintenance, thanks Tim and Bus Driver John! :)

Cruised up a ways on Two Chiefs and Don showed us a neat short cut and he trimmed some tree branches off too, tons
of poison oak which got me but I'm still showing no signs of anything and it's been at least 8 hours ago.

From Two Chiefs Don took us up one of the scree/talus slopes to get up into the North Western most area of the Table Cliffs.
I should mention the main reason for this trip in the first place was to possibly locate the Kate Heuther memorial that may have
been tossed over, but we did not find it so it's looking like either DNR removed it or someone else removed it entirely. Don
took us up to a point right under where she fell off from above and he scrambled up to recon while Paul and I waited below
on some steep edges. Paul shot some video and I tried to take some pictures of Don coming down. He got all the way up
the chimney but he said it was dicey so he came back down, didn't want to separate him from us. Worst case scenario would be
he would have had to hike down the rest of Heartbreak Ridge trail and Paul and I would have to hike back down the way we came
and meet back at our cars. Don says he might put a rope at this chimney area from the top at some point so we can go back and
get up this easier in the future, sounds good!! :))

Hiked over to his Greenleaf creek/falls rope just so I could see it and checked out the Greenlead slide that Jen discovered back in '08.

Super fun trip guys, and nice meeting you two! :)

Wanted to add that DN really, really knows his stuff! Was like outdoor school hiking, filled me up with so much information that I probably half forgot already, super smart and informative. But most of you probably already knew this, just sayn'.

Another weird tid bit is towards the end of the hike we were all talking about Broadway musicals, and it turns out that Paul Nelsen and I played in the same orchestra pit back in '93 for a Grant High School production of The Music Man but I had to check my Pa's program to make sure, as we both didn't really totally remember each other from the thing, was nearly 20 years ago after all. Totally weird!





Image

Image
Don taking a pic of huge boulder on Two Chiefs Trail

Image
Don's son Paul

Image

Image
Hood peeking out

Image

Image
We almost made it up to where Kate Huether fell off and to the Heartbreak Ridge trail by using this chimney, but Don called it off. He will put a rope up there in the future for a second attemt TBD...

Image
Another shot, was hard for me to shoot this as Paul and I were clinging to to the side of the cliffs almost, I think Paul got better shots and video too...

Image
Greenleaf slide area, first time for me, wow!

Image
Father and son shot

Image
Falls way up towards the start of the slide area!

Image
Don's cool rope around Greenleaf Creek/Falls

Image
Another Father/Son shot also HUGE tree

Image

Image
Todays GPS Track


10.0 miles, 2750' gained
Last edited by Eric Peterson on June 26th, 2011, 7:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Thum

Re: Table Mountain Cliffs with Don Nelsen and his son Paul

Post by Thum » June 25th, 2011, 10:09 pm

haha, love the father son shot lol. great job guys

User avatar
Don Nelsen
Posts: 4377
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm
Location: Vancouver, WA

Re: Table Mountain Cliffs with Don Nelsen and his son Paul

Post by Don Nelsen » June 26th, 2011, 7:03 pm

Hey Eric,

Thanks for a great day in the woods! I'll get some of my pics up later - gotta get ready for a trip to Seattle.

BTW, good thing we ran out of time for stage two of our planned outing: I did the Nesmith Ridge loop today and it kicked my butt!! Had we tried both on Sat. as planned we would have all been terminally tired.

dn
"Everything works in the planning stage" - Kelly

"If you don't do it this year, you will be one year older when you do" - Warren Miller

User avatar
Eric Peterson
Posts: 4097
Joined: May 11th, 2009, 5:39 am
Location: Oregon
Contact:

Re: Table Mountain Cliffs with Don Nelsen and his son Paul

Post by Eric Peterson » June 26th, 2011, 7:14 pm

Hey Don, the pleasure was all mine sir!

You and Paul are so witty and smart, must be genetic, heh.

Yeah, I am kind of bummed I didn't get to Nesmith Ridge yet, but we had a fun day today
celebrating my twins family B-day. I'm also glad I stopped where we did, my double knee
wrap of ace under the sleeve worked really well but not sure how much more gain it
could take, and I did take 1 Alleeve at home before I even got in the car.

Can't wait for the pictures, and I'm game again for any weekend day hikes.

BTW, were you serious about the rope above the chimney idea for future attempts?

User avatar
mayhem
Posts: 3579
Joined: December 22nd, 2009, 7:46 pm
Contact:

Re: Table Mountain Cliffs with Don Nelsen and his son Paul

Post by mayhem » June 26th, 2011, 7:42 pm

I see shows called Swap people, Pawn Stars, Finding Bigfoot, Survivor man, Dual Surviror....Etc..etc I think The Bushwackers would be a hit!
Shoe Shine Boy Has Left The Building!

User avatar
Eric Peterson
Posts: 4097
Joined: May 11th, 2009, 5:39 am
Location: Oregon
Contact:

Re: Table Mountain Cliffs with Don Nelsen and his son Paul

Post by Eric Peterson » June 26th, 2011, 8:11 pm

This one would have been right up your alley I think Mayhem, wish I had PM'd you when I
saw you online Saturday morning around 7ish, but I knew it would be too short notice.

Pretty amazing the more I think about this day 'schwack, as Don's son Paul was just wearing
some nice Nike running shoes that may have trail runners and he had low socks on and
he was just fine. I had my gigantic Asolo's on which I always wear, plus low gaiters that I
always wear if I don't wear pants, on or off trail. Man, we were on thin ground almost ready
to scramble up that chimney too!

You up for one sometime in the future? Besides the Defiance/Starvation marathon, which I think
I will be here for BTW, just hadn't responded yet in that specific thread...

User avatar
mayhem
Posts: 3579
Joined: December 22nd, 2009, 7:46 pm
Contact:

Re: Table Mountain Cliffs with Don Nelsen and his son Paul

Post by mayhem » June 26th, 2011, 8:34 pm

I'm not sure I can do of trail stuff, but it looks fun! I really need my poles & need to see my steps. My body is held together with thin pieces of leftover scraps :) Hey I ran into a really friendly guy that I have seen in the Kings area that has been doing off trail Kings Elk stuff there for 15 years. I hope he signs up & shares some of his stories.

So far looks like Cascadehiker & myself are on for the DDD attempt so more people would be better.
Shoe Shine Boy Has Left The Building!

User avatar
er0ck
Posts: 230
Joined: January 25th, 2011, 4:55 pm
Location: NoPo

Re: Table Mountain Cliffs with Don Nelsen and his son Paul

Post by er0ck » June 27th, 2011, 12:56 pm

nice work, guys! i was going to do an overnight up there this past weekend, but ended up day hiking oak ridge trail and surveyors ridge with my GF and her brother.

have fun, whomever is attempting the DDD! if i'm around (probably not) i'll try to do a single D and offer my support. :D

i too do some of my off-trails in just trail runners, but i usually have long pants on. no poison oak recently and fingers always crossed. but i often end up with bruised and/or cut-up shins. thinking of getting some NB minimus trail runners soon...
bad knees rules everything around me.

User avatar
wraithevolution
Posts: 127
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm
Location: Hood River, OR

Re: Table Mountain Cliffs with Don Nelsen and his son Paul

Post by wraithevolution » June 27th, 2011, 1:05 pm

Thanks so much for doing this, looking for the memorial. I'm really glad it wasn't thrown over the cliff but kind of sad someone found it necessary to remove it. Regardless, you did a good thing by taking the time to do this, thank you.
A man is defined by his actions in life and by the well being of those directly effected by these actions.

User avatar
Don Nelsen
Posts: 4377
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm
Location: Vancouver, WA

Re: Table Mountain Cliffs with Don Nelsen and his son Paul

Post by Don Nelsen » June 27th, 2011, 4:25 pm

Thanks er0ck, wraithevolution, mayhem and thum for the comments,

I just got a PM from another hiker who says the cross is below the cliffs possibly worked loose by winter winds. somehow we missed it. The expedition is hereby announced to replace it. More later when I have more info.

Here are a few of my pics from Saturday, but first, a detail of Eric's Garmin 62S track merged with my 60CSx track. We were never more than a few dozen feet off the same route and considering the difficult terain with the cliffs I'm impressed they are so close:

Image

Arriving at the Aldrich Butte TH at 9 am, we were greeted with the sight of a large crew, some on horseback, heading out to repair a couple of bridges on the PCT:

Image

An unusual vantage point for a view of the Chiefs - the southern one is pointier than I thought. I've climbed to the top of the larger, northern one but it looks like the other would be a more difficult climb:

Image

Hard against the cliffs this is the view:

Image

A little higher up some tenacious flowers bloom:

Image

The view down through the cleft:

Image

The view up - this could be free-soloed in the upwards direction but I think a bit difficult to get back down. Maybe later.

Image

Later on, the crossing of Greenleaf Creek was piece of cake:

Image

Cave falls at the old road crossing:

Image

Of course, the ubiquitous view of Mt. Hood rounded out the day:

Image

Don
Last edited by Don Nelsen on June 27th, 2011, 7:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Everything works in the planning stage" - Kelly

"If you don't do it this year, you will be one year older when you do" - Warren Miller

Post Reply