As everyone knows this has been a weird camping season so far, with high fuel prices, late snow melt, and massive amounts of mosquito's. On top of all that I also have a few life circumstances keeping me from doing any really long trips quite yet, but I was able to sneak away for a couple of nights to the west side of the Cascades.
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| House Rock on the Santiam Wagon Road. |
My plan was to drive over to the trailhead for Gordon Meadows/Lakes and camp there for the first night. However there are three different trailheads that access this trail, and very little information available online, or in any of my hiking books. At first I starting driving in via the House Rock area, to the easternmost trailhead, but turned around fairly quickly, thinking one of the other ways might be better.
I had driven my car into the Gordon Lakes West Trailhead once years ago and remembered there was a camping spot there with hitching rails, although no other amenities, so that is where I headed next. I didn't remember exactly how bad the dirt road was, but although it started out okay, it got progressively worse, with large potholes, some steep climbing, and then quite a few washed out areas, near the top. But I persevered, as I tend to do, and eventually got there, realizing quickly that camping was not going to be an option since there was no way to get my trailer even remotely level.
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| The Gordon Lakes West Trailhead. |
By the time I finally arrived, and knowing that I would now have to drive back out after my ride, I did not have time to do the entire trail which is just over 14 miles round trip. So instead I rode to the meadows, but not all the way to the lakes. I consoled myself with the fact that I can go back another time and hike into the lakes area, since it is a short jaunt from the eastern trailhead.
The trail is well maintained, and in good shape and there is brand spanking new signage along the way. I also rode it at just the right time of year to see the pink Rhododendrons, bear grass, and once I got to the largest meadows, the corn lilies were in full bloom.
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| On the Gordon Lakes Trail. |
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| Rhododendrons were blooming on the Gordon Lakes Trail. |
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| A smaller meadow before getting to the bigger meadows. |
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| Gordon Meadows. |
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| Small Camas. |
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| Corn lilies in bloom at Gordon Meadows. |
After driving back out the not so charming road, smoking my truck brakes on the steep section, ( my trailer brakes don't work properly, and never have, even after spending thousands of dollars trying to fix them ) I drove over to Sevenmile Horse Camp. I've been to Sevenmile before and this is a link to that blog that includes the camp description...Sevenmile Horse Camp
As per usual, it was empty, and although there are a couple of nicer, larger spots, I backed into one of the smaller ones nearest to the water source.
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| My spot at Sevenmile Horse Camp. |
This camp is located fairly close to the highway, but it's not a particularly busy road and large semis have to use alternate routes, so I was not really bothered by traffic noise during the night.
The next day I rode the Santiam Wagon Road to the west, the last time I had been to this camp I had not been able to ride in that direction, due to downed trees, and since I am like a dog with a bone and do not like to leave any trail unridden, I wanted to try again. The mid valley chapter of OET maintains the trail and it always gets cleared early in the season, but sometimes trees will fall after the fact. This time it was logged out well, other than a few very skinny saplings across the trail, that I was able to get around fairly easily.
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| On the Santiam Wagon Road, heading west. |
It doesn't take very long to get to the House Rock area, (the road I had started driving on the day before), and the South Santiam River. From there I continued on the wagon road to House Rock, which is a giant house sized boulder, and beyond, until I finally turned around at a small creek crossing.
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| Crossing the bridge over the South Santiam River. |
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| The South Santiam River. |
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| House Rock. |
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| Heading back on the Santiam Wagon Road. |
Both this and the Gordon Meadows Trail are great for riding on hot days since there is an immense amount of shade. I was happy to be out of the extreme heat that was happening at home, and sleeping in a very moderate temperature at camp, instead of my unairconditioned house.
On the third day I drove back towards home, but then took a little detour along Hwy 126 to the Ikenick Snopark, which is just before Clear Lake. This is not a normal sizeable snopark, it's just a pullout with a kiosk and some cross country ski trails trails that leave from the main gravel road. I was curious to see if some of those trails would be fun to explore.
I tried the Isaac Nickerson Loop first, it started out perfectly fine but ended up like trying to ride through a jungle, so then I switched to the Prairie View Loop, which started out perfectly fine and then abruptly dead ended. There is a map of the trails at the parking area, but it is not accurate.
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Starting out on the Isaac Nickerson Loop.
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| Got a brief view of the Three Sisters before the trail turned into a jungle. |
Third time was the charm, after riding just a short while up the main road, I took a gated old forest service road and ended up finding some views over towards Browder Mt.
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| Browder Mt. views. |
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| On a random gated forest service road. |
Partway through my ride I had come across three guys who were installing a game camera on a tree, so on my way back I gave the camera a cheerful wave!
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