I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and take a day off from work. It was a little cool and foggy in the morning, but the sun came out a little later and it was beautiful. I started this hike at the Rainbow campground, hiked the trail all the way to the Riverside campground where I had lunch. After eating lunch, we turned around and came back the same way. A couple of notes about the trail – The first bit where you are on the trail along side the Oak Grove fork isn’t too interesting. When you turn the corner and hit the main Clackamas, things start improving. You go through a lot of old growth, lots of moss, several creek crossings (which all have bridges), and basically just go up and down the whole route. Most of the time you can see the river, and sometimes you can see and/or hear the road. The last mile or so of the south end of the trail parallels the road pretty closely, so you will see and/or hear the traffic on the road. You almost always have the river as a companion, however. It was very interesting to see how the river is re-shaping its channel. There are a lot of big slides on the trail where the river is changing course.

I also found a few historical things today – or what I think are historical things – one is possibly where the old fish hatchery used to be. I’m going to check some old maps to see if I’m right. There is also a bridge across Tag creek that was an Eagle project in 1997. What a cool Eagle project!

It was a great day out in the woods. Great weather and a river that was running wild!