Elowah Falls to Wauneka Ridge, Moffet,777&I-84 JUNE 2, 2012

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Eric Peterson
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Elowah Falls to Wauneka Ridge, Moffet,777&I-84 JUNE 2, 2012

Post by Eric Peterson » June 3rd, 2012, 9:17 am

5:30 a.m. @ Elowah Falls trail head with Mayhem and Chase, earliest hike for me this year :)

Most of our hike was on formal trail so I am posting it in regular Trip Reports section.

More pictures can be seen on my "blog"

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Got started hiking at 5:45 heading up to upper Elowah/McCord falls.

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Mayhem brought a fun tool with him for this trip -

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Passing the water tube thingies along the way up to Upper Elowah -

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Always love the hand rail laden trail up here -

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Mayhem self portrait at the upper falls -

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Crossed over above the falls where I have wondered in the past where does that go! It
goes up and up and up! Peder sent me a track of the off trail portion of this hike, but
the well tracked game and boot trails were never in doubt. But I'm not sure we passed
through Rick's gap he's always mentioning, hmm . . .

Crossing over Elowah/McCord creek -

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Flow on the creek wasn't too bad, I made it across dry, but the dry feet wouldn't last!

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Cool picture of EP on a branch -

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Up, up and up we went!

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Rewarded with some views once in awhile -

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Not sure what Chase is doing here -

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Steep stuff but not as steep as the beyond section of The Island hike -

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Scramble area -

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Whew, got to a very nice area of somewhat flatish grassy terrain and cut a branch that
was bother the game that use the trail -

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A few wild flowers along the way as well -

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This might the gap area? I really don't even remember seeing it!

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I'm pretty sure this is the rock scree slide area that Rick's groups take pictures of -

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Picture of Chase that Mayhem snapped -

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Weird picture of me that Mayhem snapped -

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Got up to the ridge where it flattened out quite a bit but still no formal 429 trail and
found the Indian pits that I thought were not really near the Wauneka Trail?

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Pretty much the Wauneka Trail formally ends around here at the Indian Pits, correct me
if I'm wrong. We started down the trail doing quite a bit of lopping along the way wondering
where Sean had done anything? :D

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AHHHH - Here is some major work Sean has done!! Awesome job right here :)

Well, I'm in the way but Sean cleared out the entrance to 429 and made the old
FS sign a lot more stable, we even tried to push it over but we couldn't!!!

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Almost forgot to mention that long the Wauneka Ridge trail Mayhem spotted
the biggest pile of cat dung he had ever seen!!

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RUN!!!!!!!!!

Hit up the Moffet Creek trail where we lopped some more Roadie's back that were slowly
being uncovered from melting snow, still some more to cut in the next few trips but
we did what we could and moved on to tackle bigger things along the lower section
of the Moffet Creek trail.

Views of Tanner Valley -

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These two guys just hee-manned a bunch of logs off the trail -

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This one just broke off on it's own and the hee-men were able to pretend like they were
MCDS -

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Packing up the the burly man tool -

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Chase's muscles are starting to finally show like he has some -

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:P

Busted a move down to Chase Crossing and TFF Chase crossing his bridge -

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EP on the move -

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3:00 lunch break and I announce I am in deep doo-doo if we don't really get a move on
after we are done eating -

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Along the hike back on the Tanner Creek trail Chase spotted a huge toad that jumped up
out of the poison oak and into Mayhem's gloved hand -

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Mr. Toad was a fine specimen and very friendly to allow such handling, all the while
secreting deadly toxins right through Mayhem's flimsy little glove :P

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We used the 777 again to get down to a little shortcut that would take us down
to the Wahclella Falls TH. Before we got down there I waypointed a area off of
the 777 that was flagged and had some gamey looking switchbacks that probably
led down to that 436? loop trail, some other day I will have to check into this
unless DN or Pablo already have a answer :)

We opted for hiking as far as we could using the old highway 30 bike path until we
had to bail out off of that and onto the shoulder of I-84 -

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This afforded us a cool view of Wauneka Ridge that otherwise would be pretty short if you
were whizzing by in your car -

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Table Mt. and Greenleaf Pk. from our pavement walk -

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Another great and exciting hike in the Gorge!

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And thanks again Chase for rounding me up! :)

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Felt so good to get that old Buick off my back too!!!

Me GPS said about 20 miles before I saved the track but everything else is
saying 18.8, so 19 miles today and about 4500' of EG.

http://gpsfly.org/a/1549

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Last edited by Eric Peterson on June 3rd, 2012, 11:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Sean Thomas
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Re: Elowah Falls to Wauneka Ridge, Moffet,777&I-84 JUNE 2, 2

Post by Sean Thomas » June 3rd, 2012, 9:43 am

:o :o :o :o lol thx and no thx JA :lol: you tried to push the wimpy sign after all that work! Push the sign again and I will bury you under it with the droppings you found on wauneka, or in yesterdays case, just barf on you :P Im slow but I spent 4 hrs clearing that section. you know, instead of just chopping stuff right next to the trail like a heeman, i cut things back properly :D at least i thought :D





hahaha small world it isnt it:)


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are you sure thats cat poo? the snow was still around a little bit last weekend and I found quite a few bear tracks off trail in the snow. I think it might be bear poo but im not good at looking at poo like you and mayhem :cry:

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Crusak
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Re: Elowah Falls to Wauneka Ridge, Moffet,777&I-84 JUNE 2, 2

Post by Crusak » June 3rd, 2012, 9:48 am

¡Ay Caramba! ¡Dios Mio! (and several other exclamatory outbursts) :)

That's a whopper of a Gorge loop-tee-doo hike. From your pictures it seems that you guys forgot that there are trails up there, that you can hike on. :lol: I'm just saying. All that climbing and bushwhacking looks like a lot of fun. Nice work on the trail clearing guys!

Looks like quite an adventure, with not-so-poisonous frogs, machette-wielding Mayhem, He-Man Log Mover Chase, and EP, man-whose-feet-seldom-get-wet-except-when-they-do.

I've been grounded for two weeks now... and yes, going crazy. I hope I can get out next weekend.
Jim's Hikes

Solvitur Ambulando

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rick6003
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Re: Elowah Falls to Wauneka Ridge, Moffet,777&I-84 JUNE 2, 2

Post by rick6003 » June 3rd, 2012, 9:59 am

Lost the message, darn

Eric, thats the Gap, Pablo named it I think.

You guys sure put on the miles, and no the Island is a lot steeper by far. You should take Mayhem and Chase up there but You won't get 20 miles in that day!

We did 7.5 yesterday in 8-9 hours, just a bit diffrent terrain. LOL!!

I forgot! Leave a log or two to step over once in a while!

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Peder
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Re: Elowah Falls to Wauneka Ridge, Moffet,777&I-84 JUNE 2, 2

Post by Peder » June 3rd, 2012, 10:39 am

That is one gigantic day hike, especially when you factor in the trail maintenance. When I drove by at around 9 it was raining on the I-84; do you even mention adverse climatic conditions in your trip report? EP says that his boot survived crossing McCord Creek but that they got wet soon thereafter, presumably through contact with wet vegetation. Thanks for the trail work!
Some people are really fit at eighty; thankfully I still have many years to get into shape…

joerunner
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Re: Elowah Falls to Wauneka Ridge, Moffet,777&I-84 JUNE 2, 2

Post by joerunner » June 3rd, 2012, 11:35 am

Great stuff you guys. Can't wait to get up there on that Moffett-Tanner route.

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Eric Peterson
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Re: Elowah Falls to Wauneka Ridge, Moffet,777&I-84 JUNE 2, 2

Post by Eric Peterson » June 3rd, 2012, 11:39 am

Peder wrote:That is one gigantic day hike, especially when you factor in the trail maintenance. When I drove by at around 9 it was raining on the I-84; do you even mention adverse climatic conditions in your trip report? EP says that his boot survived crossing McCord Creek but that they got wet soon thereafter, presumably through contact with wet vegetation. Thanks for the trail work!
Hahaha - I wasn't aware that a little bit of constant rain and drizzle was adverse for the Gorge!! :P

But, yeah, I forgot to mention that about 1/3rd of the hike was 'adverse' :)

Thanks again for the track, it was purely back up insurance, but it did use it to constantly reassure Mayhem
that we were on the 'red lines' :D
joerunner wrote:Great stuff you guys. Can't wait to get up there on that Moffett-Tanner route.
Hey Joe, our pleasure, but we missed you up there! 8-)

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Chase
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Re: Elowah Falls to Wauneka Ridge, Moffet,777&I-84 JUNE 2, 2

Post by Chase » June 3rd, 2012, 12:34 pm

This means that now the Mark O. Hatfield Trail is much clearer and easy to follow than last year. The only section left to really clean up is the Eagle-Tanner connector near the big cedars and Joerunner is going to clear that up by himself. Just kidding, Joe! :D
We'll get some volunteers out there by the end of June, hopefully.

mcds
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Re: Elowah Falls to Wauneka Ridge, Moffet,777&I-84 JUNE 2, 2

Post by mcds » June 3rd, 2012, 2:46 pm

as Peder wrote, that's a gigantic hike not to mention the trail work. If i might say so, i'm particularly impressed that you guys washed up and put on clean clothes for the after-hike pictures. Classy! :shock: :lol: :lol: Just razzing. Just goes to show what great condition the loonies are in. Keep up the awesome work!

btw, great photo:

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rick6003
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Re: Elowah Falls to Wauneka Ridge, Moffet,777&I-84 JUNE 2, 2

Post by rick6003 » June 3rd, 2012, 4:38 pm

Here's another picture of that tree
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600_81717432.jpg
A little better picture of the lone tree at the Gap

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