14.5 miles of hiking • 3500' elevation gain •
First time on the Bell Creek trail. Went up Oneonta Trail past Triple Falls, continued up to the Bell Creek jct and went East, up the steep hill. Bell Creek Trail basically traverses the Oneonta Creek drainage and comes back down on the other side of the creek. It was cloudy to start the day, but soon began to rain. August and raining. WTH. The salmonberry/devil's club on both sides of the trail was epic and got us even wetter than I thought was possible. Boots weighed 5 lbs/each, poured water out of them several times. Back near Triple Falls, ran into a group of 8 Indian kids from "Denver, CO" w/ plastic ponchos, a soaked Portlandhiker.org paper print out of Rock of Ages loop(!!!) and no other gear. They had, of course, missed the turn off miles back, but were going to do the loop in reverse and come down Rock of Ages ridge! at 3pm, in the rain. Uhhh no. I told them to turn back and see Multnomah Falls instead.
