After being cooped up at home in Eugene for a week due to Icemageddon, it was time to get back out on the trail again. Fortunately Hwy 58 down past Oakridge didn't get near the storm Eugene did, so I drove out for an out-and-back of the Larison Creek trail today. The trail starts at a well-marked trailhead just off of FR21, with parking for 8 or so cars.
- Larison Cove in its stagnant glory
The first mile or so of the trail is on the hillside up above Larison Cove of the Hills Creek Reservoir. Except that the reservoir has been drawn down so far that there's next to no water in the cove: some stagnant pools at the bottom end, fed by Larison Creek coming in at the top. There must be some sort of outlet to make up for the water coming in, but all in all it's not much of a cove.
The trail tends generally upwards, with very few steep hills. Overall there was about 750' of elevation gain in the 5 1/2 miles of trail I hiked. With all of the weather we've had lately, Larison Creek itself and all of the little streams down from the surrounding hills were running strong. The trail is mostly not right next to the creek, but never out of earshot. It wasn't long before I hit my first wet crossing; there were about half a dozen in all, with water just short of my knees on the deepest ones. I was glad to be wearing wool socks.
- That's a bridge in the foreground. Pretty useless.
There are numerous side trails in the first couple of miles, leading to established campsites and swimming holes. I was not tempted to swim in the cold and rushing water today. Wading through it was plenty.
- Swimming Hole
Around the 3-mile mark I started hitting patchy snow, and not long after that I realized that something with big feet and no human companion had come down the same trail in the last day or two. It left plenty of tracks behind, though most of them had gotten enough sunlight to be indistinct, and I didn't get a really good gait picture. Cougar?
- Not quite as big as my foot
- More tracks
The snow continued to deepen, and eventually I was stomping through four to six inches of damp loose snow on the trail, with some deeper drifts at trailside.
- Gateway to more snow
I turned around at the point where the trail crosses the main Larison Creek channel and starts a steep set of switchbacks up to the upper trailhead on FR101. Given then choice between trying to balance on a wet snow-covered log, or wade through water that would have been over my knees, I took "none of the above." By this point wet snowy feet were getting pretty cold anyhow, though they warmed up quickly enough when I got back down to the lower part of the trail.
Overall, it was a fun day, and the snow made it a much better workout. I might go back at some other point of the year and hike the rest of the trail, or I might just let the mountain bikers have it for their own in the better weather. There were quite a few spots where I wouldn't want to be meeting a bike coming at me, due to narrow trails and long steep dropoffs, especially around the cove portion.
