Nick Eaton, Herman Creek, PCT - 2022.

Herman Creek Loops I did not set out to hike 26 miles. Two weeks earlier I hadn’t set out to hike 23.5 miles, either, but found myself enjoying it, and I wondered. For the past three or four years I have been hiking the Nick Eaton Ridge trail (blue, on the right). The first couple of times, I returned via the Horton Creek trail (magenta, farther right), where I had done some work with the Trailkeepers of Oregon. Then I hiked to the cutoff down to the Cedar Swamp Camp on Herman Creek, and back along Herman Creek, a total loop of 19 miles. About a mile and a half of Nick Eaton Ridge involves a steep climb through brush, followed by a scrabble over a series of rock piles, poorly marked trail, quite a bit of deadfall. The rest of all three trails is pretty good, pleasant hiking. The last time I did this hike I started thinking about the trail that goes on around the ridge to the main Herman Creek trail. It didn’t look like it would add more than a couple of miles, so I decided to try it. The ridge trail was a bit longer than expected, and I had to do some route finding over a late season snow pack at the very top, but otherwise it was a very pleasant hike down the top part of Herman Creek, through lovely woods. There is still a lot of deadfall, mostly just step-over but about a third require some serious scrambling; otherwise the trail is in great shape – after the bit of snow it was easy hiking. However, it was a couple miles longer than I thought – a total of 23.5. To my surprise I didn’t feel too beat-up, and didn’t feel at all stiff the next morning. A few days later I hiked up the first part of the PCT with a friend; excellent trail aside from the deadfalls. That got me to thinking about that loop (green on the map) – again, it looked like only a mile or two more than the Nick Eaton loop. After a brief hot spell (enough to finish off the snow pack) I planned a hike in mild weather with another friend – but she injured an ankle and backed out, so I decided to do it solo. Very pleasant hike, but 3 miles longer, for a total of 26.5 miles in 9 hours (again, by far the longest day hike I’ve done). 9 hours means a bit under 3 mph overall; but subtracting the rest and lunch breaks, it was less than 8, a moving average of about 3.3. That’s only a little slower than I was doing 20 years ago. I was pretty tired by the time I got back to the trailhead, 9 hours after starting out, but I recovered by the next morning – when I went on a 7.5 mile hike on Mt. Hood with a friend. I don’t plan to do hikes that long very often (it’s also good to spend more time just sitting by a stream or waterfall) but it feels good to push myself, test my limits every so often. I’ve definitely slowed down in the past 15 years – I know I couldn’t do Dog Mountain (2900 feet, 3.5 miles) in 60 minutes again – but it’s good to know I still have the strength and stamina for a 26 mile day. Nickn Eaton loop – the long way. I’ve hiked the Nick Eaton Ridge several times, taking the shortcut down to Cedar Swamp Camp, a total hike of 19 miles. I’ve been thinking of doing the full loop, following the ridge to the top of Herman Creek then following that trail down. From the paper map it looked like that would only add a mile and a half or so – which turned out not to be true – it added 4.5 miles, for a total hike of 23.5. I reached the TH at 7:15, beautiful hiking weather, and set off. I passed an old man resting at the side of the trail on the first switchback; he said he decided to start slow and finish slower. I think he’s the same old guy I passed last spring. I passed a young woman halfway up the switchbacks, and didn’t see anybody else until I was halfway between the Gorton Creek cutoff and Green Point – another young woman who had camped at Mud Lake. She warned me about some snow at the top but I decided to continue on anyway. The section between the saddle and the first rest stop was brushy farther up than I realized, and it continued through brush a hundred yards or so below the ridge for nearly a mile; on the other hand, trail-finding through the rock piles along the ridge-top was easier than I recalled – except for several new deadfalls across the trail. The first rest stop is just before the old Casey Creek trail – now abandoned as far as I can tell. It is a flat rock outcropping with a good view of Mt. Hood. The half mile or so past that point is in much worse shape than I recalled – a lot of deadfall and some overgrown bushes, but then the trail gets a lot better. The section between the Gorton Creek cutoff and the ridge trail is steep for at least a mile, four switchbacks then a steep section uphill to the Ridge Trail. I think next time I do this hike I’ll take the Ridge trail – looks like an extra half mile or so but probably a good view most of the way. I talked to the young woman I met for ten minutes or so, reached Green Point about 11, the base of the peak about 11:30. The trail along the ridge is wide, good hiking; two short uphill stretches, but much longer than I expected. When I finally reached the trail connector to the Herman Creek Trail I saw a lot of snow patches; then lost the trail under a long stretch. Fortunately I had the GPS function, and could see where the trail would cross the slope below me, so I bushwhacked the couple hundred yards downhill and connected up with it again. There were quite a few deadfalls on the way down into the valley, but nothing very difficult. The trail is otherwise in excellent shape, mostly carpeted with soft duff, really nice walking through very pretty woods, lots of birdsong. I stopped for lunch (at 1 pm.) at the crossing over Herman Creek, very pretty place next to the creek. Lots of deadfall between there and Casey Creek, where Scott and I turned around last week. The water was down enough that it was an easy crossing. I stopped two more times for a snack and 10 minute rest, reached the car about 4:30, a total of 9 hours 15 minutes, including an hour and a half of rest stops. Beautiful day in the woods, like a nine hour long meditation, and I didn’t feel nearly as beat up as I thought I might after that long a hike. Post script I did this again, counter-clockwise, in August 2025 and it was a beast – lots of downed timber, two burns, and a long gravelly descent, much of it like walking on marbles. I would no

Trailwork and Dayhikes May 24, 2022

I signed up for a work crew on Friday, carrying tools in to the middle section of Eagle Creek for a work party the following week. Susan, the crew leader, confirmed my doubts about Eagle Creek when she told us the work party had initially been scheduled for the previous week but the trail was blocked by a mudslide that it took her and two others a full day to clear. It was wet, stick, half liquid mud. There were also several small rock-falls, not enough to block the trail, and a couple of trees we had to move out of the way. The ground is saturated with water and clearly still unstable. A large group of day-hikers started a few minutes before us; we leap-frogged with them all morning; we would stop to clear a log off the trail and they would get ahead, then they’d stop for a rest and we’d get ahead. It was a beautiful day; we hiked 7 miles in, almost to 7 ½ mile camp, but cached the tools a half mile short because we were behind schedule because of the stops for tree removal. (Susan did get us back to the trailhead at 3:55, five minutes before the scheduled time.) She said the 4 day work party had a total of 16 down trees to clear that she knew of; given recent wind-storms and the unstable soil, there were probably more since the trail was scouted. On Tuesday I decided to see if the Hamilton Mountain loop is clear of snow (it is, though I saw a few patches of snow near the top of Phlox Point). I reached the trailhead at 7:20; no other cars in the parking lot: I didn’t see any other hikers until I reached the top of Phlox Point. On the way up to Hamilton Mountain and along the ridge beyond it I saw several patches of larkspur left) and phlox (above) as well as other wild-flowers, even a few early paintbrushes. I had already decided to do the entire loop, starting with Hamilton Mountain, then climbing Phlox point (seen from the ridge below Hamilton Mountain.) Usually we hike along the side of the ridge through the woods, then descend into the valley and climb back up on the far side. However, I’ve noticed an abandoned trail on the map, leading up to a “4WD” road that circles around the top of the drainage and passes behind Phox Point, so I decided to see what that is like. The trail we usually take is marked in green on the map: clearly the bushwhacking route is no shortcut. The trail leads along an abandoned road, which continues all the way to the ridge-line. However, the old trail has not been maintained, so large sections were overgrown with saplings and some bushes, including some small devil’s club (nasty sharp thorns all the way up the branches). At the top of the ridge the trail connects with a well-maintained gravel road (with several fallen trees and branches partially blocking it.) However, after it circled around to the Phlox Point ridge, the gravel road turned aside and it truly was “4WD,” except it was blocked, a hundred yards along, by a deep hole (probably bulldozed deliberately to block it). Still, aside from the occasional thicket of saplings or brush, it was pretty easy hiking until it reached the vicinity of Phlox Point itself, where the old road passes a couple hundred feet below the rocky outcropping that constitutes the point. Between the abandoned road and the ridge line is a series of thickets, saplings mixed with thorny bushes. I selected an area where this was the thinnest and scrambled up to a saddle from which I could climb along the relatively gentle slope of the ridge up to the highest point, Phlox Point, where the maintained trail ends. It was no surprise that I shed a little blood from scratches and gouges as I fought my way through all of this. It was just thick enough to be a challenge, and to require the occasional route-finding decision, so it took close to a half hour to scramble up the last half mile to the top. There I sat down for an early lunch (it was only 11) while enjoying the spectacular view of Mt. Hood, still fully covered in the heavy snow-falls we had in April. The weather forecast predicted wind, but there wasn’t any, so it turned out to be a great spring day. On the way down I saw two other hikers, then finally began to see groups of people when I got back to the waterfall.