Memaloose Creek above the falls and others

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BrianEdwards
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Memaloose Creek above the falls and others

Post by BrianEdwards » March 8th, 2010, 8:01 pm

Headed back out to the upper Clackamas today. The first thing I noticed was snow, lots... it wasn't there yesterday! Headed up Memaloose rd to the spur Ive mentioned on other posts. Google Earth shows Memaloose Creek losing alot of elevation above the big falls, so it had me curious. I ended up finding where the famous tunnel squatter had been living as well. This report has two parts, and I'm telling them in reverse.

Ok I took the spur road to its end and headed down the hill. Right where I got to the creek was a decent bench.
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The bushwacking was just as hard or harder than the South Fork adventure I went on a few weeks ago. Right around the bend from the first bench was an 8 footer making plenty of noise.
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The creek
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Another bench
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Another, this one was taller than me, probably about 8 foot.
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Side view of the bench.
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This one had no photo lines, but it was about 8 feet tall as well.
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After this last bench I was running out of daylight so I headed up the hill. This is where the hike got interesting. I climbed about 100 feet straight up and found a large flat area in the hill. This large flat area was a very ancient forest and was sort of an island hanging between the large cliffs. Almost felt forsaken. I was amazed at how big the trees were. here's a couple of the hundred plus of them up there.
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Trio of four foot+ diameter trees.
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Now, up ahead of this trio of big trees, I found a very well built trail that was very beaten.. So I followed it, curious to see what it was. 300 feet up the trail and I found the unexpected.. a spot where the tunnel squatter had been living.. Remember how Todd said that in 2006 the Memaloose Tunnel had a tent with a whole bunch of Powerade bottles laying in a pile.... well the squatter must have moved. No tent but a tel-tale pile.
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I followed the trail for its entire length, and amazingly, it went right back to the end of the spur road. This guy had a trail he had built through the ancient forest. I never found him or sign that he had been there recently tho.

Anyway, I still think there might be another good sized falls further up Memaloose creek, maybe about two miles further. The section today just had a bunch of 8 foot drops, still cool but no big one im still looking for. I scouted the rest of the canyon from the road, and found a spot where two ridges intersect the canyon, and I could hear rushing water from where I was 800+ ft up the hill. So maybe....



Ok, the first part of the day I spent on hwy 224 looking for more hidden waterfalls or curious creeks to follow. I drove to the Roaring River bridge, making a list of creeks and turned around. Just dowstream from the bridge was a falls across the river, I'd guess atleast 30+ feet.
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Further Down, I found the next big creek and followed it up. From the highway way up the hill one can see a 70+ foot waterfall. The sun made photographing it difficult.
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Further down, I pulled over at the next large creek and headed up. Found this cute little guy and made sure I didn't disturb him or his area.
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Here's the dead-end canyon and 20+ foot falls I came to
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Now, just after Carter Bridge, across the river, was a canyon that Google Earth showed being very promising for waterfalls. Its Helion Creek and it drops 700-800 feet in a short amount of time on its final decent to the river. Plus it had a large headwater area which meant a good chance for a high volume creek. I was excited to see a 30 ft falls right near the river. Someday I need to follw this creek up.
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Another great day of hiking in the northwest, thanks for looking
Last edited by BrianEdwards on April 18th, 2010, 12:25 am, edited 6 times in total.

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AlexanderSupertramp
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Re: Memaloose Creek above the falls and others

Post by AlexanderSupertramp » March 8th, 2010, 8:10 pm

Brian, these reports are fantastic! Thanks so much for the wealth of information.

Adam

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Splintercat
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Re: Memaloose Creek above the falls and others

Post by Splintercat » March 8th, 2010, 10:07 pm

Thanks, Brian - those are nice looking falls on Memaloose! Pretty stream.

This is probably old news to you, but since you included one of the small waterfalls along the Clackamas River Trail (as seen from across the river), I thought I'd post some pics from a VERY wet trip that I took with Greg Lief in 2004 -- sometime in early January, so waterfalls everywhere. But I did try to document the largely seasonal waterfalls between Fish Creek and Pup Creek. My highly original stream names are just the order in which you cross them -- not to be confused with the actual streams that have these names in the Fish Creek drainage. Here's the map (with my fancy cartographic additions):

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Here's what they look like, in order, starting with a small falls on the first creek, immediately above the trail:

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The second creek is the falls you saw, and the trail crosses in front of them:

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The keep getting bigger as you head toward Pup Creek -- this is the third falls, including a 40-50' upper tier just visible in this view:

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The fourth creek has a lovely, delicate falls in deep forest -- this one requires a bit of a scramble off-trail, and consists of two stitched images:

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The fifth creek is fairly big, and has a sizable, two-tiered falls -- rougher bushwhack to get to the upper tier, we were too cold and wet!

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And finally, the sixth creek has a very large falls -- perhaps even in the 80-100' range, hard to know except that it THUNDERED! This one is the most interesting because it's on a sizable creek that is shown as perennial on the topos, too. I bushwhacked quite a way up the canyon to get even this crappy shot, but will still a good 15-20 minutes of bushwhacking away from the base, due to the steepness of the terrain:

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The sixth creek is easy to locate because of the distinctive stepping stones where the trail crosses the stream -- looked like this in 2004:

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After that (per the map), you reach Pup Creek. I doubt if any of these, save for No. 6, flow much into the summer. But they're quite nice in the wet season.

Okay, in the same area, here are a couple more interesting seasonals in the Fish Creek area -- located across Fish Creek from the road (and again, you've probably already seen these... but just in case!)

Here's the first one, just upstream from the confluence, and not all that exciting -- except that it's tall... I can't even remember which side of the canyon it's on:

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Here's the interesting one -- the first obvious canyon on the west side of Fish Creek, but according to the topos, a seasonal stream. Gorgeous old trees and a nice falls, first wide then a close-up:

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Not sure how to get over there without getting wet, however. Fish Creek can be HUGE in winter..!

Tom :)

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BrianEdwards
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Re: Memaloose Creek above the falls and others

Post by BrianEdwards » March 8th, 2010, 10:28 pm

WOW, Tom. Many thanks for posting those shots! Those are the best i've seen of the falls on that trail. And yes, Fish Creek in the winter is giant, bigger than the North and South Forks of the Clackamas. I went to Pup Creek from the Indian Henry side years ago during a hot summer without a camera, so the falls you posted I haven't seen. That 6th creek looks intriguing..
Last edited by BrianEdwards on March 11th, 2010, 4:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Memaloose Creek above the falls and others

Post by jaimito » March 9th, 2010, 8:05 am

Great report again Brian and thanks for the narrative Tom.

Damn squatters… I hate to see that.

JC

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