We had never hiked the entire 5.2 mile section of the Gales Creek Trail from the end of the campground spur to Bell Camp Road. A ton of hard work was put into to realigning and reestablishing this section of trail after flooding and washouts in 2006 and 2007 left it impassable. I parked outside the open gate off hwy 6 and took off down the gravel road to the campground until we reached the trail:
Three stooges and me as big stooge getting ready at the parking area:
The recent storms have toppled a few trees and caused the trail to slide out in a few places. Nemo takes the high road while Bert opts for the lower route:
Lots of Honey Mushrooms, nurse stumps and Red Alder leaves of varying sizes along the way:
The creek is very pretty as it fights its way mile after mile through a maze of logs and recently fallen trees:
It was fun to check out this old?
There were a lot of stream crossings along the way to Bell Camp rd that were flowing pretty strongly. Some of them had nice little falls right off the trail or directly onto the trail itself
Jack always seems fascinated by them:
We saw eight or nine elk on Bell Camp Road which caused quite a bit of excitement in both groups:
I made a bad call extending the hike all the way to Bell Camp rd and not long after turning around it was clear little Bert was spent for the day. He was happy to saddle up in the pack for the last 4 or 5 miles and didnt make a peep on the whole ride home:
A few weeks back Jojo and I hiked a little bit of the same section and admired a large cottonwood:
And a Douglas-Fir that seems to have escaped the burn and the saw?
While we were hiking the road back to the entrance gate a man drove down asking if I had a cell phone and if I would call someone to come open the gate. The road that goes past the campground is gated and often closed in the winter but loggers or ODF open the gate during the day to access the highway/logging. Hunters and hikers a like seem to drive past the gate all winter/early spring despite increasingly larger warning signs at the entrance stating that the gate can be and will be closed at any time. The loggers must have called it a weekend early and closed the gate leaving his car and another vehicle on the wrong end of the gate. There was a telephone number on the sign he asked me to call but it was only open during weekdays. There are several ways to leave the area from the campground and get back to Timber rd to the east or Bell Camp/Storey Burn to the west but he didnt have a map and wasnt familiar with the area.
