I've been hanging out in the Clackamas district for the past couple of weeks exploring some lost trails - and in this case I mean lost in the sense that MHNF has abandoned these trails and they appear on no current map but volunteers have kept them up all these long years since official maintenance was dropped. Last week I did a couple of gems, one called the MP3 trail and the other an old extension of the Cottonwood Meadows trail down to Skunk Creek Rd. I did a small report and posted to trailadvocate.org
here. In the course of the discussion of this report, I noted mention on trailadvocate.org of an
April hike to Huxley Lake starting near the confluence of Roaring River and the Clackamas River:
"Starts at Highway 224 near the Roaring River climbing out of the canyon
on a long abandoned trail to Winslow Pit on the 4611 road."
Additionally, this a lost trail as in the 1916 Estacada 30' topo the trail is clearly shown just west of where the Roaring River flows into the Clackamas (click the picture link to get the hi-res version for a better view). The trail on the map goes on Northeast to the lookout on what is now called Tumala Mtn.
So my objective was to reprise the hike out of the Clack to the Tumala Mtn lookout just like what would have been done before the construction of Abbott Rd.
I got the location of the trailhead from a post on the trailadvocate.org web site:
"Go west on 224 around the bend to the large pullout under the power
lines. At the west corner of the clearing at a pile of boulders enter
the woods and find the trail. Making the connection to the Huxley Lake
Trail can be a bit of a puzzle."
I was able to locate the trailhead easily enough. A shower started up as soon as I hit the trail and lots of mist obscured the views.
A very nice tread for a lost trail - well maintained by volunteers.
Once out of the canyon, the trail passed through this open area full of near old-growth Doug fir.
The trail narrows for a bit into a ridge trail.
After the hike out of the canyon, the part about Huxley Lake being a puzzle was very true. On the way up I did x-country from the 4611 road, on the way back, I followed trails, ATV trails, and roads - I note that few are marked on NG topo maps. The x-country part going up was quite enjoyable as the terrain to the lake is fairly flat and the understory is lacking the brush that can make these things miserable. BTW, the route I took on this hike in either direction is not recommended for beginners. The lake is very pretty as can be seen in this panorama:
From Huxley Lake I hopped on the #521 ATV trail going North and headed for Lookout Springs and Abbott Rd. About 4000' I hit snow and it went deep and stayed that way. Abbot Rd. has a good 6-8ft+ snow on the road just east of Lookout Springs - so forget about anything up that way until the end of June. I made for Tumala Mtn but I hit my turn around time and will have to do this part another day.
On the descent, the clouds lifted and I was able to sneak a peak up the Clackamas drainage. The Roaring River is just below in the foreground canyon.
Ran across this pretty flower, I think it looks like some sort of iris.
Great hike, interesting bunch of trails in this area. Only saw a couple of ATV'ers.
Anyone planning hikes in the Clackamas ranger district would be well advised to visit trailadvocate.org - the definitive site for any Clackamas hiking adventure. A very complete list of trails in the area with original descriptions and links to the MHNF trail descriptions in PDF format.
Approximately 9 hours, 16 miles, 4000'+ cumulative elevation. Route finding was challenging at times - if you look at the map you can see me getting off trail a time or 2 and backtracking:
