Since that's a short hike my intention was to do another short hike first. My plan was to hike up decomissioned Road 255 to the site of the long-gone Eagle Creek lookout. There's a geocache there and several along the road too, which would help break up the monotony of road walking.
I parked right off of Road 36. The pavement around here was carpeted with broken glass, trash, and shotgun shells. There's a huge berm that blocks Road 255 and the concrete barriers in front of the berm are so shot up that at first I didn't realize what they were.
There's a well-established path in the trees to get around the berm. On the other side it was more of the same glass, trash, and shells. After a few minutes, though, I left most of the trash behind, at least for a short while.
All the while I could hear target shooting in the distance and even though I saw no shooters on this old road I started wondering what would happen if they showed up in the time it took me to hike up and back down. This area was giving me the creeps and then I came across this, a car hood propped up by logs and all shot up.
By now I was a quarter mile in, which means someone dragged/hauled that big heavy hood back here somehow. Then I reached a creek crossing where the bridge had been removed and even though it would have been easy to rock hop the creek this late in summer I decided it was the final straw and I turned around. Moments earlier I had pushed through a patch of vegetation and spiderwebs (eek!) in a section of really overgrown road and I figured there would be much more of that the further up I went.
A side note about the bridge crossing here. I assumed the bridge had been removed as part of the decommissioning process, but when I got home I found this 2010 document about road decomissioning options in the Zigzag Ranger District. Evidently vandals were responsible for the bridge removal, not the FS: "Access to the Road 255 trailhead was blocked when an abandoned car was burned on the bridge over Eagle Creek and destroyed the bridge. Subsequently, Road 3626-255 was blocked at Road 3626 eliminating this trailhead and convenient access to the lower part of Douglas, Douglas Tie and Eagle Creek Trails."
My short little walk was not in vain, though, because there were a lot of huckleberry bushes along the way and they were FULL FULL FULL of berries!
So much for that little jaunt. I will try that one again another time with a different approach. There's a side trail off of Eagle Creek Trail 501 that goes up to the lookout site. Back at my car I drove over to the quarry. A car was parked at the bottom of the rutted hill but I forced the Subaru up the road to the quarry, where there were no other cars. I got the same creepy feeling here in the quarry, where evidence of the unsavory crowd who hangs out here is everywhere. The place is a dump. Here is a shot-up tape deck, complete with cassette tape (there were other pieces of electronic equipment nearby too).
This glass bottle on a boulder had clearly been used for target practice. This is right where you leave the quarry to get on the trail, meaning that people were shooting in the direction of the trail.
I hoped I wouldn't find my car gone, burglarized, or full of holes when I got back and quickly headed into the trees.
I saw the tallest
Wilderness boundary sign shot to bits.
Not far off the trail I spotted this metal survey disk that marked the boundary of the wilderness. I've seen plenty of USGS survey markers, but I've never seen a NF wilderness boundary marker like this.
I reached the junction with the spur trail up to Wildcat Mountain. No signage of any kind, but the trail is easy to spot. It is, however, getting quite overgrown with rhododendrons. Many spiders had made their webs across the trail, so the going was VERY slow as I waved my hiking poles around in front of me to knock them down (I'm sure THAT would have looked funny to any bystander!). Damn I hate spiders. After what seemed an eternity of the rhodie/spider hell I reached the summit.
A fire lookout stood here once but is long gone. The trees are growing up but you can still get a peek at Mt. Hood.
Bill Sullivan recommends pushing through the rhododendrons to the edge of the summit for a better look at Mt. Hood. I attempted this and all I got for my troubles were two bleeding scraped-up legs. Rhododendrons are pretty to look at when they're in bloom but they are hell to navigate through.
On my way back I took the side trip out McIntyre Ridge to the bench at the awesome viewpoint. (Once again, no signs at this junction. It's like the MHNF has forgotten about this area of the forest.) I had the viewpoint all to myself so I just sat and enjoyed the scenery for awhile. The wildflowers that bloom here earlier in summer are all bloomed out, but the view made up for it.
And then I headed back down to my car, which was safely intact. There were, however, two men just out of sight down the hill in another part of the quarry. I got a glimpse of one of them and he definitely didn't look like a hiker. So I got in my car and drove off right away instead of doing my usual drinking-water-and-taking-off-the-boots post-hike routine.
It was nice to check Wildcat Mountain off my list but if I ever hike someplace in the "Hwy 224 corridor" of the Mt. Hood National Forest again I won't go alone.
I don't know that I would have been brave/determined enough to go ahead with that hike.
