9.5 miles of hiking • 1250' elevation gain • 1 night
With a rainy forecast for the weekend, we were determined to find a dry spot somewhere in Oregon. Decision: drive 3 1/2 hours East to Prineville.
We did an out and back overnight to the Mill Creek wilderness area. Began at the South Twin Pillars TH and hiked along Mill Creek. The trail crosses the creek 7 times in the first 2 miles before you intersect with the Belknap Trail. Even at high water, it's easily manageable with sandals, but walking in them gave me blisters. This area is recovering from a 2000 forest fire, and many areas surrounding the trail are burned forest. After setting up camp along Mill Creek, we decided to get some elevation by climbing the Belknap Trail to see if we could get some views. After about 1/2 mile you can see the Twin Pillars across the valley that gave this trail it's name. They are the volcanic plugs left over after an eruption some 40 million years ago.
The day was alternating clouds and sun, but warm and pleasant.We passed a couple groups of hikers along the way up and back to camp, but saw no one after that. The evening was cloudy, but no rain and very little wind. We had a nice fire. The next morning was clouds and threatening rain. It seems we merely delayed our escape from the weather. Rain and wind came in spurts, but then it would get sunny again. Some nice flowers out along the trail, and we really enjoyed the contrast of the explosion of life in the Spring in this recovering and normally dry forest.
