Since I’m going to be having cataract surgery this week (which means I will be down for a week or two) and because I didn’t get out last weekend, I wanted to make sure I got out this weekend. My
… Read the rest Tag Archives: Ollie
8/24/2024 – Cottonwood Meadows – 705
Today’s hike turned out considerably differently than expected. The plan was to hike the Cottonwood Meadows trail from the southern trailhead – go up the trail to the northern trailhead and turn around and come back down. We encountered a
… Read the rest 6/22/2024 – Fish Creek Mountain – Side Door
After hearing that there was a way to get up to the Fish Creek Mountain trail relatively easily, I’ve wanted to explore this trail after the fire. Today was the day. We headed out a bit early since I needed
… Read the rest 5/18/2024 – Huxley Lake 521
Today’s hike was going to be a relatively short one since Kirk had to get back early for an event. I’d been looking for trails that were opening up since the snow levels have been rising. I hadn’t hiked the
… Read the rest 9/4/2023 – Schreiner Peak
Today’s hike is one I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Kirk suggested we do it on Labor Day. I will be doing my annual backpack trip with Carly next weekend and needed to do some conditioning anyway, so
… Read the rest 3/4/2023 – Half Creek Waterfall Explorations
Today’s hike was spurred by some info I got from a friend last week at a meeting of the Trail Advocates. A new waterfall had been found after the fires opened things up. It was a pretty tall waterfall and
… Read the rest 2/11/2023 – Bagby Trail Explorations
Today’s hike was different than many I’ve done recently. The weather on Saturday was forecast to be really nice, which turned out to be very accurate. I wanted to get out, and after some discussion with Kirk, we decided to
… Read the rest 1/28/2023 – Fanton Snowshoe
Today’s hike was a relatively simple plan – one which I’ve done before. The idea is to drive up the 4614 road as far as you can to catch the Fanton trail, and then hike it up as far as
… Read the rest 1/1/2023 – Fish Creek – Post Fire
Today’s hike was my annual New Years Day hike – I’ve done it 10 of the last 12 years. Since you can now legally enter burned areas on foot, we decided to head up the old Fish Creek road (road
… Read the rest 11/19/2022 – Dry Ridge Trail
Today’s hike was to explore some more of the burned areas. We also wanted to hike a trail we hadn’t been on recently and also due to recent snow, had to be accessible. The Dry Ridge trail seemed to fit
… Read the rest 10/10/2022 – Whetstone Mountain – 546
Trying to take advantage of the really nice fall weather, and the fact that I had Columbus day off, I decided to head out on a hike. I didn’t want anything too taxing, but I wanted a nice day in
… Read the rest 9/24/2022 – Bull of the Woods
Today’s hike had two objectives:
… Read the rest - To hike to the Bull of the Woods and look at the remains of the lookout that was destroyed in the fires last year (and also see the burned areas)
- To explore north of the
8/13/2022 – Baty Butte to Powerlines
Today’s trip was kind of a surprise (the destination was) – for the last 2 years, the majority of the Clackamas has been closed due to fires. Even though a huge portion of the district didn’t burn, the roads getting
… Read the rest 5/21/2022 – White Iris Trail area Explorations
I haven’t been hiking in over a month – mostly due to really wet weather and the fact I wasn’t in the right head space to deal with getting soaked – so I’ve been waiting for a nice day to
… Read the rest 4/9/2022 – Huxley Lake
Today’s hike was my first hike in almost 2 months – I’ve been resting my knee after the arthroscopic surgery and was finally able to get out and do some real hiking again. Zack was originally going to go but
… Read the rest 1/1/2022 – Highland Butte
Today’s hike was the annual “first hike of the year” event. I’ve done a hike on 1/1 on 9 of the last 11 years – and one year I missed it due to weather. We’ve had some low elevation snow,
… Read the rest 11/13/2021-West Pinhead Butte and Skyline Trail Segments
Saturday was supposed to be reasonably good weather (for November) and I thought maybe we could get in one late season hike on the east side. It won’t be long before this area is all covered with snow and inaccessible.
… Read the rest 10/30/2021 – Sisi Butte and Skyline Trail
Today’s hike was something very different. The weather was supposed to be nice, although somewhat chilly and a bit windy and gusty. I had said we could explore some of the other segments of the old Skyline trail and Kirk
… Read the rest 7/3/2021 – East Side Driving Tour Part 2 – Mt Lowe
Today’s hike was another long day of driving to explore the east side of the district after the Riverside fire. We did a similar tour two weeks ago, trying to rest my ankles. My ankles have been doing pretty well,
… Read the rest 6/19/2021 – East Side Driving Tour
Today’s trip was not really a hike – I sprained my ankle on the backpacking outing a couple weeks ago, and I was advised by the doctor to rest my ankle for 4-8 weeks. I really wanted to get out,
… Read the rest 5/1/2021 – Fanton to Old Baldy to Squaw Mountain
Today’s hike plan was to drive up 4614 as far as we could, and take the Fanton trail up to Old Baldy and then head east over to the Squaw Meadows area to explore. The day threw us a few
… Read the rest 3/27/2021 – Eagle Creek Loop
Today’s hike was another attempt to find the old location of the Eagle Creek Lookout. It was a lookout that was not in operation for too long, about 20 years or so and has been gone for over 60 years
… Read the rest 3/6/2021-Douglas Trail
Today’s hike was to explore a portion of trail I’ve not been on before. It was to explore the west end of the Douglas trail. Last year, Kirk and I did a bit off an adventure to head up to
… Read the rest 1/23/2021 – Devils Peak Lookout
Today’s trip we had talked about for a while. Originally we were thinking about doing this as the 1/1 trip, however the weather that day was terrible, so we changed plans. I’m glad we did, because today was just about
… Read the rest 12/5/2020 – Bissell and Old Baldy Trails
Today’s hike was planned to be one of the few trails we have access to due to the Riverside fire. Originally we were going to do the White Iris trail, but we decided to head up the old abandoned Bissell
… Read the rest 11/28/2020 – Wildcat Mountain
Today’s hike was an idea that Kirk had. Since pretty much the entire Clackamas district is inaccessible due to the Riverside fire, he had the idea to head up to Wildcat Mountain. Initially, the idea was to go from the
… Read the rest 10/3/2020 – Eagle Creek (Clackamas) – 501
Today’s hike was very interesting, and VERY different than what was originally planned. Originally, we had planned to do a little “civil disobedience” and technically violate the forest closure order. We were hoping we could get up to the White
… Read the rest 9/27/2020 – Mosier Creek – BLM Land
Since the Riverside fire has completely closed the Clackamas district for the foreseeable future, I was looking for other “off the beaten path” hikes that I might be able to do. This area on Ridge Road – a parcel of
… Read the rest 6/13/2020 – Rho Creek Trail – 569
Today’s hike was to revisit a trail I haven’t been on for over 6 years. Kirk and I hiked this trail on New Years day of 2014 (a winter with way below normal snowfall). When we were coming back down
… Read the rest 3/15/2020 – Cripple Creek Trail
Today’s hike was kind of unique. Normally I would be going to church on Sunday, but due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) our church services have been cancelled for the next two weeks. Since I can’t go to church, I thought
… Read the rest 2/9/2020 – Helion Creek Rescue Attempt
After the disaster last week where I lost my new drone, I had been thinking about it and I couldn’t let it go. The weather for the following Sunday was supposed to be rather nice, and I thought it was
… Read the rest 2/1/2020 – Helion Creek Explorations
Today’s hike was something I’ve had on my hiking todo list for a number of years. Brian had posted photos of the waterfall on Helion creek and what might have been a blasted trail bench on it. I wanted to
… Read the rest 1/1/2020 – Lower Cottonwood Meadows – 705
This was my (mostly) annual new years day hike – I’ve done this 8 out of the last 10 years now. One year there was just too much snow to go ANYWHERE (2017), and I’m not sure what happened the
… Read the rest 12/14/2019 – Elk Lake Creek – 559
Today’s hike was just to get outside and enjoy a fall/winter day. The higher elevation trailheads are inaccessible now, so I had to choose something a bit lower. The Elk Lake Creek trailhead is relatively low (2400′) and didn’t appear
… Read the rest 11/16/2019 – Pansy Lake and BOTW Lookout
Today’s hike was an exploration to see if we could find the “old” Pansy Lake trail. In my picking thru historical stuff at the Forest Service, I found an old document that showed a pretty major trail re-route of the
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