Last camping trip of the year...sad but true.
Almost every trip I have done this year has been changed at the last minute due to weather.
This one being no exception.
I headed to Box Canyon on Aufderheide Rd. in the Willamette National Forest, since it is fairly close, and wasn't supposed to have as bad weather as my original plan.
This is a nice little camp. And it is free! It is well maintained, the corrals are in good shape, with wooden gates instead of chains. The road is paved all the way there, as is the loop in camp. It is a little tricky to back into some of the spots due to the narrowness of the loop road. Someone with a big rig would have to park in site #1 which is the easiest. The spots have two corrals each except for the two double sites. The ones with four corrals are separated, two and two, which is handy if you have horses that don't get along. There is no manure bin or garbage, or potable water but there is an actual tap for stock water, which is so much easier than the hand pumps!
It's a very shady camp with tall trees and rhododendrons.
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| Box Canyon horse corrals |
There is a guard station across the street from camp that can be rented, and it has it's own large corral.
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| Box Canyon Guard Station |
Next to camp spot #1 is one of the trailheads, this will take you to either the Grasshopper trail which I did not do, or the Chucksney Mt. Trail, a loop of about 10 miles, which is a bit of a climb.
This loop has good views, due to fire having burned the trees at the top.
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| Photo op, Chucksney Mt. |
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| The Cascades |
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| Chucksney Mt. |
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| Enjoying the view atop Chucksney Mt. |
I only had three days so instead of trying the Grasshopper Trail, (the first 4 miles is part of the loop I just did the day before), I decided to try the McBee trail which also starts from camp.
This trail goes on forever into the forest and is supposed to eventually reach the Mink Lake Basin and Horse lake area. It starts with a small slightly rocky climb, levels out for awhile and then gently meanders upwards to a ridge, there are brief glimpses of the Sisters through the trees. I eventually turned around and went back to a trail I had passed earlier called Crossing Way and decided to take it back to make a loop.
It popped me out at the Crossing Way trailhead which also happens to be a primitive horse camp, just pull throughs and hitching posts, nothing else. I then rode down the gravel road three miles to the main road, and then half a mile back to camp.
A nice easy trail, but no real views or any lakes, at least as far as I went on that day.
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| The McBee trail starts from the water trough in camp. |
As I settled in to cook dinner that night the rain started. Luckily it was done by morning and things looked promising so I decided to do the Erma Bell Lakes trail.
There are two options with this one, either trailer in to it about 3.6 miles, (it says 4 on the sign, 3.6 in my hiking book), and do the 8.4 mile loop, or ride from camp, which adds the seven or eight miles to the trip, making it approx. 16 miles.
If choosing to drive, it is a one lane gravel road across from camp... and there is plenty of parking once you get to the trailhead which is also Skookum Campground.
I decided to ride in and do the long version.
Once there the trail starts across a sketchy looking bridge, that hopefully will be repaired soon, and goes through the forest for a pretty much flat mile, until you get to Lower Erma Bell Lake.
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| Lower Erma Bell Lake |
As I rode the weather got gloomier and started to drizzle. After the first lake you pass a waterfall, and then there is Middle Erma Bell Lake, the waterfall connecting the two.
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| The waterfall that connects Lower and Middle Erma Bell Lakes |
The rest of this loop is through various types of forest, passing many other lakes and ponds along the way. There are a few more bridge crossings, one that looked so bad I chose to go through the stream, instead, although I saw signs that horses had been across it.
All in all a good camp to go to in the heat of summer since it is so shady and the trails are so forested.
Weather wasn't as great for my trip, but a day on my horse is a good day in my book.
Until next year....:)
GPS COORDINATES TO BOX CANYON
