Oneonta to Larch Mtn.

21 miles of hiking • 8500' elevation gain • 1 night

I originally planned to hike from oneonta up towards larch until the snow then cut east/north back to nesmith point. plans don't always work out...

terrific day, albeit a bit crowded for a late start from ainsworth, past horsetail falls, and triple falls. I camped at "e" just off Multnomah spur, trail 446. nice site, but it's right on the trail. less traveled than larch mt. trail, especially with patches of snow around. great water supply and tiny fire ring. also campsites at a, b, c and d. i'd only use "a" in a pinch. it's right on the oneonta trail after the bridge upstream from triple falls. lots of room though.
site b is right at the trail junction with 425 (nesmith trail) right where the stream ford is. There were four or so tents in there when i walked by on saturday. not too much flat ground in there... site c was pretty small, with a fire ring and some firewood. no water site d was the nicest, bit isolated, plenty of water, just wasn't far enough up the trail for me.

on sunday i got up to larch with nice packed out foot prints and no post-holing. no tracks to guide me on the way down 424 and it's REALLY tough to follow those trails buried in 4-10 feet of snow. i lost the trail around "h" and ended up following the stream back to 424 below the intersection with 459. hellish snow and bushwack to get back on trail. i just about kissed the trail when i found it. I was still feeling good at this point and headed up 459. that trail is a disaster. it's almost as bad as the bushwack. i lost count of the blowdowns, some of which you have to crawl under. one of them seems to have stripped my pack of its sleeping pad (somewhere after "i". of course i didn't notice until i got to 425. i backtracked a while but couldn't find it. if you find a z-rest up there, it's yours if you pack it out of there. major trace left :-(

at this point i'm exhausted and my knees are screaming at me and i don't have a sleeping pad, so i head home down 425 back to oneonta. i'll have to get up to nesmith in a couple weeks and see if there is still a viable trail down nesmith road going north...

to add insult to injury my car window was smashed INSIDE ainsworth state park in the walk in camping parking. nothing worth stealing in my car. i should have left the doors unlocked...

Comments

Chris
May 29, 2011

Thumbs up to a fun weekend of backpacking.

BOOOOOOO to a smashed window. That's not fun. (Dislike? Un-heart?)

Roman
May 30, 2011

That's a lot of ground covered! I can't imagine following a trail in 4-10 feet of snow FOR MILES without a GPS or somebody's tracks. Too bad to hear your car vandalized. They tried to rob my car once (at a trailhead), I left the doors open so it was intact; then it was stolen (from university parking lot, recovered on the side of a freeway 3 days later). Now I don't know which is better - to lock it or leave open (and no, it wasn't a car was worth stealing, somebody just got a fun ride)...