Off-trailing in the Salmon Huckleberry Wilderness

For our final foray into the wilderness for May, we decided to head into some previously uncharted territory for us. And, as it turns out, for many others in the last 70 years.

We had a rough, late-ish morning after attending our friend's wedding. I was mildly hungover and very tired/sore from a week of intense crossfit. We started along an old forest road full of salmon berries.

Salmon berries!

At this point we expected the trail to be pretty easy going up to McIntyre Ridge. We encountered some very cold but beautiful mist among the large trees and rhododendron bushes.

Just below McIntyre Ridge.

After climbing for almost 9 miles, we stopped for lunch atop Wildcat Mountain.

Chilly lunch overlooking wildcat creek.

Despite telling ourselves we'd take it easy on miles after our last outing, we ended up picking a route that required between 12 and 15 miles every day again. After spending the night at Twin Springs Campground, we hiked to Tumalo Mountain, a spot Peter has been eyeing for some time now.

Taking a break atop Tumalo Mountain.

Following our short morning break, we began our descent down to the Roaring River. We should have known it would be a brutal trek when we lost the trail at the very start. Once regaining it, we started an extremely steep descent. We took a break near half way down by Huxley lake. It was intensely overgrown and the water was so red/green that we weren't even tempted to swim.

Skunk Cabbage - there were gardens of this near the lake in the marshy fields.

All told, we had 3.5 miles to get down to the river and back up the other side, hopefully to a nice ridge-trail. Starting at 2:30 in the afternoon we assumed we'd have no problem. We finally made it to the river which had no bridge. We decided to cross in our shoes (sans socks) due to slippery rocks and a substantial current up to waist height (for me).

Roaring River, preparing to ford.

Crossing proved cold and tiring, we pressed on for a little while to dry ourselves a bit before stopping to have dinner. After about 30 minutes we found a trail, which soon dead-ended at a nice campsite.

At end of abandoned trail near sunset, beneath Dry Ridge.

We decided to have dinner as we were pretty calorie deficient at this point (per usual). We filled our water (5 liters) at a small tributary in anticipating of not finding anything up on top of the ridge. At this point, the GPS and our two different maps were telling us 2 different things. We decided this time to trust the GPS/forest map and crossed the creek.

Creek Crossing.

We spent the rest of the evening bushwhacking up Dry Ridge. Every 15 minutes we would think we saw a trace of a trail, but it would always disappear. It was a beautiful time of day, the sunset light filtering in to the forest.

Rhododendron at sunset on Dry Ridge.

We had 2400 feet to climb over 1.5 miles. We were sometimes pulling ourselves up more than 45 degrees on a ridge covered in fallen trees, vine maples, densely packed bushes and old rotting wood that would collapse under our weight every 5 - 10 steps. By dark, we decided to stop, but we weren't even half way up yet.

I'm bushwhacking in this forest. Can you find me?

We kept thinking we'd find the trail if we just went a bit further. Just a bit further. Luckily by 8 pm we used our better judgement and stopped to let our bodies rest.

Camp. The most flat spot we could find.

In the morning we headed out in anticipation of finding an obvious trail crossing, according to the maps. After several hours, we didn't find it. There was no trail anywhere within 2 miles of the river. Eventually, we made it far enough to get near some more recently used and maintained trails.

'Road 4611' was back across the Roaring River.

It took us 8 hours to go 2.5 - 3.5 miles. This trail has not been touched in probably nearly 70 years. It was a brutally steep, incredibly overgrown ridge. It was such a spectacular relief to reach this point. Our next stop was a place I'd visited myself on my first solo backpacking trip: Serene Lake.

Siesta at Serene Lake.

It was a wonderful stop. We spent nearly 5 hours lounging around - taking a nap, a long lunch, a dip in the lake. We didn't see another soul. In fact, at this point, we hadn't really seen anyone on our trip aside from a couple mountain bikers on the first night. This isn't altogether surprising, looking back at the state of the trail :).

Dinner near High Rock.

We continued on, weary from our travels. We still had more than 20 miles to cover, and only one more day to finish. We hiked for several hours, finally settling at a spot off of a forest road that had views of the mountain.

Hood from campsite

When we first reached this spot, we decided to just take a look at the mountain, maybe have a bit of whiskey to celebrate. At this point, our trail was expected to be all downhill, at a relatively gentle grade. Something we knew we could finish, despite the many miles ahead. We were ready to stop, but felt like we should hike for another 5 - 7 miles first. We checked the gps and found a surprise: we only had 13 miles left.

Fire after dinner, watching sun set on the mountain.

Confident we'd be able to finish in time to make it back to Tualatin for Haile's final middle school orchestra performance, we decided to stay. Our only concern at this point was water - we were running low. We hiked to Hambone Springs and spent a solid 20 minutes trying to find water after finally heading down a tiny trail to an old work-camp pool which we slowly filled from.

Napping near Hambone Springs.

It was cold enough to warrant wearing a long sleeve top most of the morning. This helped keep the pesky mosquitoes at bay as well. We walked along an old forest road, headed toward Salmon Butte. There were many rocky cliffs in the forests, lush valleys below. This area seemed to get no traffic, we guessed that many of these cliffs had never been explored.

Unnamed butte.

When we finally reached Salmon Butte we were so utterly devastated that we were barely able to move our legs. Any uphill, just lifting our legs, required intense effort. It wasn't painful, just slow. Salmon Butte was a supposed 100 foot climb up from the main trail. It felt more like 500 feet.

Salmon Butte. From here we could see Jefferson, Adams, Helens & clouds where Rainier should have been.

We stopped for awhile, finding it difficult to get up from our seats. We were supposed to meet Hanna at 5pm at the trailhead and expected to get there by 3 at this point. When the GPS told us we had a mile left, we slowed down, enjoying wonderful fields of flowers and tall grasses dappled with sunshine, swaying in the breeze.

Unexpected spring explosion on the old forest road.

After more than an hour of walking on this old road we popped out into a parking lot. Civilization. My shoes were still semi-wet and soggy from the climb through the river and we smelled like we hadn't showered in a month. It was a relief to hop in the car.

Dappled grasses and soft trail.

As always, it's good to be home. To shower. To be with the kids. But the wilderness is calling and I wonder how long we'll hold out before we're there full time.