5.4.13 Land of the Mayhem Lost ...Without my Amigos :)

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:

Re: 5.4.13 Land of the Mayhem Lost ...Without my Amigos :)

Post by Eric Peterson » May 5th, 2013, 8:49 pm

Can't believe the wrap around fingers were omitted!!

User avatar
kepPNW
Posts: 6411
Joined: June 21st, 2012, 9:55 am
Location: Salmon Creek

Re: 5.4.13 Land of the Mayhem Lost ...Without my Amigos :)

Post by kepPNW » May 5th, 2013, 9:09 pm

mayhem wrote:
Eric Peterson wrote:Mars, that was the best TR movie ever hands down man!!! Even my 16 yo daughter thought so!!
So did my wife!!
Tough audiences! High praise! :)
Karl
Back on the trail, again...

User avatar
Sean Thomas
Posts: 1647
Joined: February 25th, 2012, 11:33 pm

Re: 5.4.13 Land of the Mayhem Lost ...Without my Amigos :)

Post by Sean Thomas » May 6th, 2013, 6:51 am

So you saw them and were unable to yodel them down back your way :o :?: It looks like you still had some awesome sunshine up there tho.

payslee

Re: 5.4.13 Land of the Mayhem Lost ...Without my Amigos :)

Post by payslee » May 6th, 2013, 8:51 am

mayhem wrote:Silver Star Not Today

On the return I was shuffling down the Eagle Crix sore foot style trail when someone got my attention going up the trail, stopping & giving me & Extra Eide Birth?? I slowed down & said hey it's all good ! Her reply is your Mayhem right? It's Happy Friendly Payslee :). She gave a good bump fist & Bamm! I was on my way to somewhere??
It was fun to meet you, Mayhem!

You seemed so worried that you'd scared me, but I was super-psyched to see another person. I'd been playing "which of these unmarked jeep roads is the trail?" for a while, and it was reassuring to find I was on the right track.

Stepped aside cause you were running :) Stopped cause you were mayhem :D

A beautiful day to be up there! I'll toss in a few pics for the collection soon.

-payslee

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

Re: 5.4.13 Land of the Mayhem Lost ...Without my Amigos :)

Post by mayhem » May 6th, 2013, 12:49 pm

payslee wrote:
mayhem wrote:Silver Star Not Today

On the return I was shuffling down the Eagle Crix sore foot style trail when someone got my attention going up the trail, stopping & giving me & Extra Eide Birth?? I slowed down & said hey it's all good ! Her reply is your Mayhem right? It's Happy Friendly Payslee :). She gave a good bump fist & Bamm! I was on my way to somewhere??
It was fun to meet you, Mayhem!

You seemed so worried that you'd scared me, but I was super-psyched to see another person. I'd been playing "which of these unmarked jeep roads is the trail?" for a while, and it was reassuring to find I was on the right track.

Stepped aside cause you were running :) Stopped cause you were mayhem :D

A beautiful day to be up there! I'll toss in a few pics for the collection soon.

-payslee
Sorry I did not mean to alarm you. I was also wondering if I was on the right trail more than once. Great to meet another PHer face to face on the trails :)
I'm going to get out there again a few more times so I can get familiar with the area & not feel out of place.
Shoe Shine Boy Has Left The Building!

payslee

Re: 5.4.13 Land of the Mayhem Lost ...Without my Amigos :)

Post by payslee » May 6th, 2013, 1:38 pm

payslee wrote:beautiful day to be up there! I'll toss in a few pics for the collection soon.

-payslee
and here they are:

I was following (sort of) the South Ridge Route described in Doug Lorain's Afoot and Afield book. His description seemed a little vague, and none of the maps I had really satisfied me, so I (luckily, as it turned out) also made my own route topo maps by sketching in Kep's excellent track from his last snowshoe up that way onto a downloaded topo. Also brought along an aerial of the area. It had been years since I'd been up there, and I'd never taken this route before, so I was as prepared as a non-GPSer could be.

Headed up the gated road from the TH through a corridor of young Alders.
Image

After a mile or so there's a much older, more grown-over road off to the right. It's the first side road since the TH gate. There were lots of pretty wood violets blooming, and at some point this section had some treadwork done.

Image

Headed up up up the road. I took some side trips in this section as Lorain (unhelpfully) says to go "straight" at all the junctions. After backtracking from an extra half mile or so side trip I was back on what (I hoped) was the right road and got to meet Mayhem running down. Don't worry Mayhem you are not scary ;)

Once you start to break out into the open all the hard work and wrong turns are forgotten. Everybody takes this picture, because you can't not.
Image

A lone hiker was heading down the face of the ridge as I was coming up the road, but he kept ridging it past the obvious connector spot so we didn't actually cross paths. But I was still really glad to have seen him, because I decided to head straight up the side of the ridge myself, rather than take the trail around. And I would never have kept going to that awesome little summit if I'd tried to find it by trail.

The little spur onto the ridge takes you right up to a stunning vision quest pit and view of Hood.
Image

Then you just scramble on up the slope. It feels a lot longer and higher than it looks from below. There were awesome views east to 3-corner rock,
Image

and then as you get closer to the cool stone pile on top you can start to see Adams
Image

Image

Met this cool little rubber boa up on the final rock pile.
Image

And then the whole horizon opened up to the north. Gorgeous!!
Image

I hung out here for a while, watching lots of people up on the Star 2 summit and along the trail to pyramid rock. Decided to loop back around on the hypothetical connector trail and then head down, as it was late in the day and I was heading to a BBQ in Yacolt.

I should have done what Mayhem did and turned around. But it looks so easy and close. But the minute you drop over the backside you are in deep snow. And considering how many people I knew were ahead of me there were not nearly as many footprints near where the trail should be as I was expecting.

Still gorgeous though. Here's looking back at the south ridge after successfully staying out of treewells in that little pocket of forest.
Image

I went about another quarter mile from here. Hit the same lack of footprints and trail as previous reported, and finally decided to be smart and turn around.

But wait, what's that down below??? Footprints!
Image

I was so happy to find the connector trail - thinking this would shorten my return time because it would be easier navigating and travelling than the little x-c route I'd taken up. I was completely wrong! Should have stuck with the known route. Followed the snowy trail into the trees Through snow snow snow. Started getting sinking feeling that I was heading to Grouse Vista like it or not.

Finally, ONE set of footprints headed back south the way back to the south ridge in the about right place to be the trail junction. I followed them. Tough going through snow into ice water and across or under melting-out slide Alder. Finally joined back up with the south ridge trail and wondered, not for the first time, what had happened to everybody who'd come up this way??

After finally getting out of the snow it was a nice, hot, uneventful trip back down. Saw a cute little garter snake but he was too quick for me to catch with the camera. Saw most of the cars were gone at the TH and couldn't figure out how I'd manage to miss just about everybody. More snakes than people for me today.

But it was a great day to be up there, and seems like everybody made it back one way or another. So much more to explore up here!

Once the rest of that sloppy snow melts out, at least ;)

-payslee

User avatar
kepPNW
Posts: 6411
Joined: June 21st, 2012, 9:55 am
Location: Salmon Creek

Re: 5.4.13 Land of the Mayhem Lost ...Without my Amigos :)

Post by kepPNW » May 6th, 2013, 1:43 pm

mayhem wrote:I'm going to get out there again a few more times so I can get familiar with the area & not feel out of place.
I'll go out there, anytime (I can) - just holler! Someday, I'd like to figure out a five-spoke wrap-around up there! In just the last year, I've wandered out all five ridges:
  • Image
Would really be something to "complete the star" in one trip!
Karl
Back on the trail, again...

User avatar
kepPNW
Posts: 6411
Joined: June 21st, 2012, 9:55 am
Location: Salmon Creek

Re: 5.4.13 Land of the Mayhem Lost ...Without my Amigos :)

Post by kepPNW » May 6th, 2013, 1:56 pm

payslee wrote:I was following (sort of) the South Ridge Route described in Doug Lorain's Afoot and Afield book. His description seemed a little vague, and none of the maps I had really satisfied me, so I (luckily, as it turned out) also made my own route topo maps by sketching in Kep's excellent track from his last snowshoe up that way onto a downloaded topo. Also brought along an aerial of the area. It had been years since I'd been up there, and I'd never taken this route before, so I was as prepared as a non-GPSer could be.
Loved your photos! And really happy to hear that track helped, at least a bit. :)
After a mile or so there's a much older, more grown-over road off to the right. It's the first side road since the TH gate. There were lots of pretty wood violets blooming, and at some point this section had some treadwork done.
I think that's about where EP setup a camera, and we just walked on by, trying not to look at it. A bit farther down the (wrong!) road, we realized we were way off track. That was the day's first bushwrecking, as we fought our way 1/3 mile back 150' uphill through alder thickets, with a smattering of fresh devil's club mixed in. :lol:
Once you start to break out into the open all the hard work and wrong turns are forgotten. Everybody takes this picture, because you can't not.
:D
A lone hiker was heading down the face of the ridge as I was coming up the road, but he kept ridging it past the obvious connector spot so we didn't actually cross paths. But I was still really glad to have seen him, because I decided to head straight up the side of the ridge myself, rather than take the trail around. And I would never have kept going to that awesome little summit if I'd tried to find it by trail.
I owe that route to VanMarmot's recommend. It's a real winner! What's odd is, you can see some semblance of a trail from below, looking up. But on the way up... turns out it was just a mirage?!
I hung out here for a while, watching lots of people up on the Star 2 summit and along the trail to pyramid rock.
That's funny you saw folks around Pyramid Rock. (Unless it was us???) As far as we could tell, we were the only ones to wrap around that side of the ridge that day. The far side, from where you were, was a friggin' highway, though!
I should have done what Mayhem did and turned around. But it looks so easy and close. But the minute you drop over the backside you are in deep snow. And considering how many people I knew were ahead of me there were not nearly as many footprints near where the trail should be as I was expecting.
...
I went about another quarter mile from here. Hit the same lack of footprints and trail as previous reported, and finally decided to be smart and turn around.

But wait, what's that down below??? Footprints!

Heh, now I really wish you had a GPS! Would love to see where this all happened. :)

That south ridge is far less populated than all the others. Good and bad things about that, I guess. :)
Karl
Back on the trail, again...

payslee

Re: 5.4.13 Land of the Mayhem Lost ...Without my Amigos :)

Post by payslee » May 6th, 2013, 2:45 pm

kepPNW wrote: And really happy to hear that track helped, at least a bit. :)
Your track was super helpful! I was intentionally staying on or as close to "trails" as I could since I was by myself and no one was likely to go looking for me til the morning if something went wrong. Since the trail wasn't always visible and the footprints didn't always go where I wanted, I just tried to trace your track against the topography in the tricky places.

But wait, what's that down below??? Footprints!

Heh, now I really wish you had a GPS! Would love to see where this all happened. :)
It happened about like this:
silverStarPayslee.jpg
Blue track penciled in.
Where I dropped straight down the hill on the left is where I saw the footprints in snow. Couldn't have been more than 100 feet between the two trails at their closest.

User avatar
kepPNW
Posts: 6411
Joined: June 21st, 2012, 9:55 am
Location: Salmon Creek

Re: 5.4.13 Land of the Mayhem Lost ...Without my Amigos :)

Post by kepPNW » May 6th, 2013, 4:35 pm

payslee wrote:
kepPNW wrote: And really happy to hear that track helped, at least a bit. :)
Your track was super helpful! I was intentionally staying on or as close to "trails" as I could since I was by myself and no one was likely to go looking for me til the morning if something went wrong. Since the trail wasn't always visible and the footprints didn't always go where I wanted, I just tried to trace your track against the topography in the tricky places.
That's some really good route-finding!
payslee wrote:But wait, what's that down below??? Footprints!
Heh, now I really wish you had a GPS! Would love to see where this all happened. :)
Where I dropped straight down the hill on the left is where I saw the footprints in snow. Couldn't have been more than 100 feet between the two trails at their closest.
Oh wow, that's about as nasty a place as there is up there, right now. It's bad enough without snow, but yeah, those woods are really tricky. We were definitely consulting our GPS's through there, to stay on course. And even at that, there was a lot of zigging and zagging to whack through the trees...
Capture.JPG
Our "shortcut" to avoid the cornrows.
So you sorta bombed right through those cornrows, then? I did that last January, which was my first time on (modern) snowshoes. Got sucked right into a monster tree well that day! Definitely not a great place to get turned around. Although, the more natural areas, that are less regular, are even worse.
Karl
Back on the trail, again...

Post Reply