16 miles of hiking • 4250' elevation gain •
Started down at Wahkeena around 11 am. Made good time up to a point under Devils Rest to cut across some old logging roads to get up to Larch Mountain road. Ran into one of my daughters class mates on the remote logging road, they were doing a 3 sons and a dad Fathers Day hike of some sort. Figured out later that they parked at the yet closed Larch Mountain gate and were hiking the wrong way if they wanted to get to Larch. Ended up 'schwacking up about 3/10ths of a mile up what used to be a viable logging road to hit Larch Mountain road. Cruised up the desolate LM rd., just saw 1 couple coming down telling me there was snow on top of Larch. Again cut across a trail access road off of LM rd. and hit the regular old LM Trail, 441. Not long after, maybe less than a mile and half I was on top of Sherrard PT. taking in the lovely views of all the mountains! See side bar pictures of the mountains I saw. Um, ok... they were the embedded plaques of 5 mountains! Totally misty for most of this hike and tons of fog drip but no rain, got totally wet bush wacking up the first abandoned logging road. BTW, that abandoned logging road looked to have some of Don Nelsons artifacts on it, well, just some old tires and car tail pipes and other assorted crap. Wasn't too hard to stay on track following all the junk but I had my GPS too. Went all the way down 441, Larch MT. trail to the old Perdition trail, did I mention I had my awesome dog with me? Wow, I can understand now why this trail is closed. Greatest 1 mile 'schwack I have ever done and even got to lift my 75 # dog up a big boulder at the end of those fallen down cement stairs. Also saw at least 1 of the old classic view points as described on PDX Hikers, hit it by accident but marked it on my GPS.
Mostly avoided the dumb Multnomah 'flip floppers' by taking the illegal trail, and it mostly has tread so I know there's more than just a few people using this thing. All it needs is a good machete and most stout hikers can just deal with the huge blow down and those Planet of the Apes looking cement stairs. Did I mention the hike was mostly a fog dripped misty kinda day. The weather liars said partly cloudy and 68 today!
Forgot to add that there is barely any snow up on top of Larch area, just a few feet in the parking lot and some 3' of drifts on the paved section that goes up to Sherrard PT. I think they can open the gate and just plow the snow away, but they probably don't have a plow around? The bathrooms up there are unlocked so someone has been up there with a truck or something, seems silly that the gate is still closed...
Knee - knee was pretty much ok, not to much problems and I think I had knee brace on the entire trip, tinged a bit on the scree field going down Larch MT Trail...
Comments
Yeah, I can totally understand now why that trail is closed. Had to try it myself to really get it. It was a whim thing, no one was really around at the bridge to see me jet up. Probably would be a lot easier using the Wahkeena entrance too. Only took dog today since I figured most of my hike would be pretty much text book except for 'schwacking 3/10's of a mile to get to Larch MT. road...
Roman
June 19, 2011
It's a nice loop. I think the only reason that trail is closed (versus just being left as is) is FS managers fear the droves of flip-floppers would get into trouble every day. It's just too close to Multnomah.