Salmon River to Frustration Falls - 2013/11/17

[merelunacy]

Very cool trip report! Pretty neat to find out there is a way to get there in the winter. Love the pix, must have been really tricky across those logs. Seems like it was a fun adventure. Thanks for posting.

[Guy]

Thanks folks, finding our way to that viewing spot was a great unexpected bonus on the hike.

@ Tom,
I've been re reading your Salmon River Pages, now that I have been there it's easier to visualize.

Intriguing how the '63 expedition got down to the River level in that area! In this Frustration Falls Photo below the one guy separated from the others is standing on the ledge at the base of Little Frustration Falls.



You can see that ledge in this photo that I took from the top of Little Frustration:



If the '63 expedition did use ropes then I think it would be a pretty easy rappel from the top to the bottom of this cliff band that Little Frustration falls over.

@Brian
The scramble trail we took lead us directly to the top of Little Frustration. A lovely spot with a fair sized ledge & an old fire ring.


Top of Little Frustration Falls

About half way down this scramble trail we noticed another trail leading off to the right that we did not take. I'm guessing now that this leads to view points of Final Falls & from there you would be able to look back & see Little Frustration (Just a guess!)

Actually though the person to ask about where to photograph Little Frustration from is Tom! While thwarted in his attempt to find a clear view of Frustration on his 1983 expedition he did take a couple of lovely photos of Little Frustration ..


©Tom Kloster 1983

I also found a photograph of these falls in a 2008 Portland Hikers Report written by "The C-Ws":

[Splintercat]

Guy, if you have a copy of Don & Roberta Lowe's "Mount Hood: Portrait of a Magnificent Mountain" (a must have for any Wyeast-o-phile), there's a shot of Frustration Falls from pretty much your vantage point. I picked their brains about the area when I was getting ready to head in there in 1983, but they didn't remember a lot of detail about the canyon at the time (oddly, since the book was only about 10 years old at that point). I also managed to meet Thomas Vaughan at the Oregon Historical Society (the audacity of being 21 years old..!) that year to ask about their trip, and sadly, he didn't remember much at all -- which also struck me as odd and frustrating, as it was only 20 years passed at that point since the naming expedition! So... some secrets are lost to time.

The 1963 photos include stream-level views of the falls between Frustration and Final Falls and the brink of Final Falls, plus a shot of a 6-man group relaxing on top of one of the bluffs above the canyon. In the latter, they've got a couple of ropes (and a dog), so I think it's likely they at least used a rope to aid their descent, but not in a true rock-climbing sense.

The Oregon Geographic Names account only mentions the OGNP subcommittee consisting of Thomas Vaughan (OHS), Donald Sterling (Oregon Journal) and Herb Stone (USFS), but there were clearly at least five people on the trip, counting the photographer (the cliff-top portrait could have used a tripod). More details lost to the mist of time, I'm afraid.

Tom

[jaimito]

Don this trail would be good for one of our group outings.

Apparently there are several hidden falls along the Salmon River Gorge all requiring sketchy descents on user trails or scrambles down ravines. It sounds right up our street

Guy,

I'm in - let's put this together. Any Sunday for the rest of the year is good for me.

dn

Don hit me up if you go... We need to reconnect.

J