Part two of my trip...
To begin, Andy, yes the stream was absolutely raging! That was the main reason I decided not to follow all the way down, cross and descend the "alley" on this trip. It was the most serious whitewater I've seen in the Gorge. Unlike Eagle which has numerous slower spots where you can safely swim in high flow, most of upper tanner is unrelenting! When you see the photo I took of Volition, you'll see what I mean. I even had to take the photo 100 yards back because of the spray. For a waterfall of 10 to 12 feet, that says something!
So I'll start out with that evening...as twilight began to fall I had already reached the end of the road and checked out the Tanner/Moffett creek connector trail a bit...which needs serious trail maintenance. And I was deciding where I'd like to camp. I decided to follow a use road on the third from the lowest powerline. After startling some deer, I followed an older road down to a larger tributary stream. The light was fading fast at this point, so about a 1/3 mile downstream I made camp. I had to stop briefly though to capture some beautiful light as the sun set. Here is a photo of the stream:
The night was fairly un-eventful, aside from hearing an enormous crash in Tanner
Creek about 1/3 mile distant. I imagine a huge boulder must have broken from the Western wall of the drainage. It must have been huge to hear it at such a distance, over the already loud streams!
The next morning I rose at dawn and followed the stream down to Tanner. From there I traversed to Volition falls. Directly above the falls I entered an almost impentetrable labrynth of devil's club. And below my feet was a stream...don't go this way! For one, you can't tell where you should step half the time, and for another anything you touch will leave a 1/2 inch spike in your hand. I'd recommend traversing upslope a bit and coming down.
Here's a photo for those unfamiliar with Devil's club...keep in mind that it strongly resembles large-leaf maple branches, and so you are tempted to use it for hand-holds, balance, etc... but lookout!
Finally I made it to the base of the falls. I followed the stream down, and was dismayed by the spray issues. What an extraordinary formation. Not a tall falls, but very distinct, as the entire stream drops fairly uniformly about 10 to 12 feet. The main thing I noticed however was the white-water of the entire stream. Absolutely the most powerful section of stream I've seen in the Gorge yet. Absolutely beautiful, but highly dangerous to cross. Here is a photo downstream of Volition - the falls in the upper left quadrant of the photo, demonstrating the whitewater:
After seeing the whitewater, I decided I might not want to push my luck in crossing this right now, which I'd have to do to descend my route down above Wahclella. So I decided to follow another of the tributary streams up to the road, and just enjoy the scenery of the creek. It was a wonderful time, though a bit more than I initially expected. There were 3 or 4 Devil's club labrynths, a 5 foot waterfall, 10 foot waterfall, and finally a 20 foot waterfall to climb up before finally making it to the road. There were ways around all of these...but being in it for the adventure, and trying to prepare for Moffett creek, I decided to largely just stick to the stream bed. It was a long 2/3 mile with a 50lb pack, but fun. I saw a rough-skinned newt, two oregon slender salamanders, and two frogs on the way. Here are some critter photos along the stream:
Above is a rough skinned newt, below is a slender salamander:
I have no idea what type of frog this is...but I'm sure it's a frog!
There were also some lovely sections of stream along the way. Here are some of what I like to call, stream-scapes from the creek:
Here is a photo of the 20 ft waterfall on the small stream. It's actually not as steep as it looks either. You can walk up it (if you are careful!) I chose to climb up the right hand side however to avoid thoroughly soaking my feet.
Once I finally got up to the road, I had an interesting walk back. There was a large boulder blocking the road, along with a large stump, and just as I was trying to figure out how they would remove such a thing, I passed the answer:
It must have run out of gas however, as no one was nearby. About a mile later though, a red pickup with a couple of workers passed me headed in the direction of the dozer. As I neared Eagle creek, there was one more very neat sight to behold. You could see across the river, directly between Table and Greenleaf, upper Greenleaf falls raging in all it's springtime glory. Though this falls is beautiful and probably very impressive up close and personal at this time, that is one bushwhack I do not recommend! The area around it is highly unstable. This vantage from the near the Wauna viewpoint turnoff is probably your safest bet with this one. It would be a great spot with a telescope!
And so my brief trip up Tanner concluded. In my opinion, there is nothing quite so potent as this amazing area to make the case that the Gorge - at least the Oregon side - should be preserved in the form of a national park! Already, thanks in large part to Bonneville dam, and I-84, the area is seeing a lot more polution than it deserves, and with exploitative plans by many groups for the area's future, such as the casino proposal, the natural wilderness of this region could be lost forever. This drainage is only about 5 miles from the proposed casino! I was once again awed by the natural wonder of the Gorge on this trip, and am committed more than ever to helping push for it's preservation. Here is a parting shot, looking down Tanner Creek road.
What a fun weekend it was!
-Zach