West Fork Falls

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bobcat
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West Fork Falls

Post by bobcat » August 11th, 2011, 8:25 am

My wife and I went up to Mt. Hood and decided to do two short hikes on either side of a picnic lunch. The contrast between these two walks (West Fork Falls and Trillium Lake) is so great that I will post them separately.

West Fork Falls (as in West Fork Salmon River) is located on the slopes of Mt. Hood between Timberline Lodge and Highway 26. The only reason I know about it is that it appears in Douglas Lorain’s Afoot and Afield: Portland/Vancouver (I have the 2003 version). I doubt that it has ever been written up in any other hiking book although I notice that the Trails Club uses it as a “qualifying hike.”

Directions: Turn up the road to Timberline Lodge. After 0.2 miles, turn left. After 0.2 miles, turn right onto Westleg Road (unsignposted). Drive 1.6 miles up Westleg Road to the junction with Eastleg Road (signposted for the Westleg and Eastleg cross-country ski trails). Park behind the boulders.

Some of the boulders have been moved (probably illegally) so vehicles can drive down to a campsite on the road at Still Creek. It’s a short walk down to Still Creek on Eastleg Road. From this point, the road bed is impassable to vehicles because of blowdown. There’s a short rise and then the road drops. These are dry woods dominated by Engelmann spruce and lupine blooms profusely by the roadside this time of year. It’s about ¾ mile from the trailhead to a flagged path leading uphill from the road into dry montane forest. This dead silver fir’s burls shows it experienced quite a bit of stress in its life:
Burls.jpg
The trail is obvious, but there are some snow-bent trees and blowdown to negotiate. The trail then makes a traverse to the top of West Fork Falls, which cascades about 40 feet into a shady gulley. To get a full frontal of the falls, I went back along the trail and scrambled down the steep slope. For scale, you can see my wife Tina in the top left:
West Fork Falls.jpg
After this, we had a choice. Lorain says most people just go back the way they came. We saw a trail heading up the other side of the stream and decided to try and make a loop using Westleg Road. The bridge of branches across the top of the falls is slippery and requires some care:
Crossing.jpg
The trail then heads up the east bank of the stream. The lush, mossy bed of the ravine contrasts with the dry woodland around. The further we ventured, the more blowdown and debris we encountered on the path. There are three smaller waterfalls cascading into the West Fork above the main falls. Above the third falls, the West Fork is a dry gulley in the summer, but it is still packed with snow:
Snow gulley.jpg
The trail appears to cross to the left bank and then back over to the right bank although snow still obscures a lot of the track. After a fallen mountain hemlock, which straddles the stream bed, there appear to be two short switchbacks leading up the right bank. From here, we lost any sign of a trail and bushwhacked up through silver fir saplings, crossed a gulley, and reached the bed of the West Fork again. We went right and, after a few yards, noticed some Caution flagging on a tree. This appeared to be pointing to a deer trail heading up from the left bank, so we took it. The trail headed up steeply and into a meadow. We went straight up the meadow and reached a ski run. Trees on the south side of the run were marked ‘Ski Area Boundary.’ We went left and down to the paved, but deserted Westleg Road.

From here, we just wound our way down Westleg Road for about 2.6 miles. There are views afforded up to Hood itself and south to Trillium Lake, Jefferson, and the Sisters. One car passed us by during this time. The road, which is closed in the winter, passes across a chairlift and various ski runs. Snowboarders and that dying breed, downhillers, might be familiar with monikers like Brother Bear and Uncle Jon’s Band. The road passes above the chairlift terminal, looking like an abandoned spacecraft in the summer:
Chairlift terminal.jpg


The terminal is also near a boggy area just below the headwaters of Still Creek. These are not berries on the willow but the galls of the willow sawfly wasp. Each one houses a tiny but growing grub:
Galls.jpg
There are boggy blooms. Here’s a bog paintbrush:
Paintbrush.jpg
Also boggy denizens - a Cascades frog:
Frog.jpg
Eventually you reconnect with the Eastleg Road and your car. The loop is about 5 miles, 900’ elevation; in-out to the falls, it’s 2.6 miles and (I disagree with Lorain, who says 500’) about 400’.

This is not you premier hike in the Mt. Hood area, which is one reason I’d never done it before. However, if you want some quiet time away from the crowds, West Fork’s your man. Also, the loop would be a great introduction to a (short) off-trail adventure for the kids, city slickers, and out-of-town visitors. Just enough blowdown, debris, dangerous snow bridges, etc. to whet their appetites for more, and very little chance of spending the night awaiting the rescue choppers.

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Splintercat
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Re: West Fork Falls

Post by Splintercat » August 16th, 2011, 7:26 am

Thanks, Bobcat -- interesting details on the trail above the falls. I'd looked at that path before, and kinda figured it died out quickly. Did you get any photos of the upper waterfalls? BTW, the main falls is looking very good from a few years ago, when it was filled with a lot of debris, and not too "scenic".

Tom

cfm
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Re: West Fork Falls

Post by cfm » August 19th, 2011, 8:06 pm

Hey Bobcat, Because I read your TR, I recognized this today.

Same critter home?
willow galls.jpg

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bobcat
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Re: West Fork Falls

Post by bobcat » August 20th, 2011, 7:34 pm

@cfm: Yes, those are on the leaves of a willow. Same kind of gall. They actually "ripen" and become brighter red as time goes on.

@ Splintercat: Didn't really get any good pictures of the side falls on the West Fork. All three are of the cascade type, tumbling down over rocks a la Ramona.

Kennedym60
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Re: West Fork Falls

Post by Kennedym60 » August 21st, 2020, 2:23 pm

I did this hike yesterday 08/21/20. The trail is overgrown with huckleberry bushes, there was lots of blow down. The bridge us gone. This us not a maintained trail. I walked down east leg and missed the trail on cairn or anything to mark the start. Walked to the end where it reaches timberline rd walked back and found trail head was overgrown and not readily visible

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