Snow Shoes from Government Base Camp

At one time, Government Camp, was just a regular campsite on that part of the Oregon Trail called Barlow Pass (or the Barlow Road). When a huge wagon train (several hundred wagons) of the Federal Army was forced to leave a cache of supplies at the location, the locals took to calling the location “Government Camp” and the name stuck. Now-a-days it is an unincorporated area with a post office, a few eating establishments, and a bunch of condos and ski shops.  We are staying at Collin’s lake resort Grand Lodge. This is right off of highway 26 and a really (really) nice set of condos built around a little lake and a beautiful stand of fir. 

We are using the Grand Lodge (which is really just a big hotel building with nice condos instead of hotel rooms) as our base of operations and are planning little snow outings every day.  When we originally planned to come up here was a couple of days after the big ice storm that Oregon had in February. The power was off all over the place including Government Camp. Collins lake told us 1) The power is off, 2) it won’t be back on soon 3) You can’t come up here (travel restrictions) 4) We won’t give you a refund.

But they did let us reschedule. We weren’t really sure if there would still be decent snow this late in he season, but Surprise Surprise, we had snow falling on us as we drove into the mountains !

Now, if you are a big time adventurer or sports enthusiast, you can come up to Government camp and then access the downhill ski areas (Timberline, Skibowl, summit, or Meadows) or any of the many cross country trails (like those to Trillium Lake or Barlow Road). If you have kids, there are many hills to do sledding and such (I like White River snow park, but there is a rope tow over at Skibowl and a dedicated tubing area). There are also lots of little sled hills around including one on the edge of Collins Lake Resort.  My party (me, my partner, and a couple of our sisters) have older knees and stick mainly to snow shoeing as our winter sport. There are many nice, scenic, and easy to access snow shoe trails around government camp. 

Crosstown Trail

This is just a little trail that is up behind town in the woods and goes from the East side of Government Camp (at the little Summit chair lift) to the Glacier View snow park outside of the west end of town. There are a few connector trails that come up out of town and cross the Crosstown.  As it turns out, one of those connectors hits the road through town right across the street from The Grand Lodge, and so my partner and I could just walk over there carrying our snowshoes and access the trail. We went up the Skiway trail (which is also the power line running up to Timberline). This is a wide expanse of cleared trees and not all that scenic. It is also pretty steep. It goes all the way up to Timberline which means that it may also have skiers coming home from their last run on the mountain. And they have right of way. That must be pretty cool, to be able to take the shuttle up the mountain, ski all day, and then just ski down to your condo in Government Camp when you are done.  But today we are just walking. 

When we hit Wally’s Tie (a trail off to the left) we got away from the power lines and entered the woods. Now things are just beautiful. The snow off the of the trail is generally pristine (non trampled) and still more than 6 foot deep. So you are up closer to the tree tops in the white and green. All 3 days we were here were sunny and this first hike gave us a bright blue sky. It also heated us up quite a bit so we were moving along in shirts and a light vest.  After a bit we hit the CrossTown, where we hung a right and worked our way back over to the power lines again. At this point we could have continued on Crosstown  back to the top of the town but we had been going for over an hour already and still were a ways from the road, so we headed down hill back to where we had started.  This was about an hour and a half total walking time.

Enid Lake Loop

From looking at a not quite so good map we had concluded that the Enid Lake loop trail was a trail that looped around Enid Lake. Surprise! One of our team had even done this hike a couple of years ago and said it was a very short walk just around the edges of this very small lake (OK, more of a medium sized pond). It turns out we were mistaken.

The trail starts out at the West end of government camp. Basically the western terminus of the Crosstown trail. We drove there (you have to get onto 26 for a bit to get the entrance). It is part of a snow park (have a snow park pass) and (during the summer) a continuation of the old Barlow pass part of the Oregon Trail (A great place to practice not dying from dysentery) (See, that was an Oregon Trail Game joke…). 

We parked at the end of the road (where the snow plow had stopped plowing) put on our snow shoes and followed the trail toward the Enid Lake Loop. Almost immediately we were back into the pristine white beauty of snow covered pine forest. It is very surreal to drive 10 minutes from a resort and find yourself in a place where (at least since the last snowfall) very few people have walked. The slightly trampled path leads through pristine snow, 6 to 10 feet deep, with just a scattering of pine cones and pine needles to show the impacts of recent wind and weather. We came to the little lake after just a few minutes with the marked trail going right and an unmarked trail going left. I was a little confused by this because we had thought the loop would just be around the perimeter of the lake, in which case the trail would be marked in both directions. But….

That is the lake out there. Trust me

To the right we went. And up and around. Glad I had snow shoes on, probably wouldn’t have broken through in most places, but it was icy and slippery in a couple of spots. We were not very close to the lake either. Most of the time we were 50 to 100 feet away with just glimpses of the lake through the pines. Perhaps when we got around to the other side. We had been walking for around half an hour when we came to the intersection of the Cross Town trail. My partner and I had originally talked about taking this trail and walking back to our condo (with our 3rd member driving back in the car) but things were taking a bit longer than we thought and we had decided to see our other member safely back to the car first. Good decision. We continued counter clockwise around the loop and found ourselves deep in the woods and no where near to the lake any longer. 

A little bridge crossing

There were several places where there were small foot bridges with 4 feet of snow narrowly on top that had to be traversed. More walking, now coming up on an hour and I was beginning to feel like we were on the wrong trail. Except that the signage was great…… Perhaps we had just fooled ourselves about the nature of this trail. Still, we go around a bend and come to a place where the trail crossed a little creek and there was no bridge. A creek fording isn’t a big deal, but it was complicated by the wearing of snow shoes. Certainly don’t want to get our socks wet. We decided to cross the creek and continue on for another 10 minutes and see if we got to the trail intersection we were expecting to find. 

Turns out it was just 50 feet beyond the crossing. Boy did I feel dumb. Now we were back on the main track coming into where our car was parked. It turned out to be a much longer hike than we had thought but that turned out to be from not having a good enough map. 

PCT at Barlow Pass

This was going to be our big snow shoe of the week. Drive East from Government camp following state route 35 to the Barlow Pass trail head area. Not many cars there are all. The trailhead is up at the top of a 10 foot snow bank. Would be hard to get to so we walked down to the Barlow Road entrance (snowed in but more accessible) and then just walked the 50 feet over to the signage for the Barlow Pass trailhead of the Pacific Coast Trail. Another very nice hike through deep snow and pine forest. After about a mile it starts climbing up a ridge line which makes it a bit hard going. My  knee was starting to bug me and walking on the side of the hill like that was bugging me so we didn’t get very far. Still, it was extremely beautiful and we only ran into 2 other sets of people while we were out there. 

I like these forest snow shoes. Make sure to dress in layers, carry extra layers, carry some sort of emergency shelter if you are going to far away from a road and tell someone where you are going. We had phone service pretty much everywhere we went on this trip, which is a good additional safety feature. 

I want to do this again next season. I really liked having a nice warm base camp to work out of, and by next year I should have a brand new Knee to try out.

Route 30 and Cascade Locks

 Historic Route 30 through the gorge was the first dedicated scenic highway built in America and was originally constructed between 1913 and 1922. It was envisioned as a destination roadway that would take advantage of the popular and versatile Model T to move Oregonians through the beauties of the Columbia Gorge. It has stops and parking at the many world class water falls, that come tumbling from the uplands off of the gorge cliffs down to the Columbia, as well as many high sweeping vistas up the gorge and across to the mountains and cliffs of the Washington side. The highway's travel function was replaced in the 50’s by the new interstate 84  and some of the original route 30 was lost to the new construction. But much of the little road was in places that just didn’t make sense to put the big interstate and so it was saved in many beautiful sections. It is now preserved as either car accessible (and still signed) route 30, or Bike and Pedestrian only paved trail that is operated by the Oregon Parks service (and signed as Highway 30 Historic Trail). 

Today, my friend Chip and I are going to ride our bikes on a 7 mile section of the “no cars” trail between the trailhead at Bridge of The Gods (Cascade Locks, Oregon) and the end of the “cars allowed” road that runs along all of the little falls (including Multnomah) from the West. This trail will take us by Eagle Creek and Bonneville Dam, amongst other places.

I am trying out some new technology today. It is my first long ride on unknown territory on my new eBike and my new titanium knee. Both have been fully charged and are ready for the adventure.

One thing I discovered, in my purchase of an eBike (besides, it is really hard to find an eBike during a pandemic) is that the things are very heavy (60 pounds) and so have special requirements when it comes to putting a couple on the back of a car. My Forester has a 1.25 tow socket and a limit of 250 pounds on the ball. I want to be able to carry two 65 pound bikes. There are a number of racks out there that can do this (none of these, by they way, can be hung off the trunk lid, you need a trailer hitch) and they all are very hefty and pretty expensive. I was advised to get one that was designed for the big tires and such on an eBike and I ended up choosing this baby from Thule: <link>.

Any drive up the Gorge is apt to be a nice one with beautiful views (well, if it isn’t snowing or pouring and the Gorge isn’t on fire) and today was no exception. People are getting out locally a lot more what with the pandemic limiting flights and such so the big parking lot at Multnomah falls has been very full and requiring online pre-registration for a while. Today, as we drive by, it is only a little over half full. We have had some rain lately, the first of the season, and after a very dry summer the extra water is very welcome. The little seasonal waterfalls that come tumbling down off of the high gorge cliffs are starting to run again and they decorate the steep highlands with silver and glitter. Many of the falls are not visible from the interstate, but if you were to take the time to drive down historic route 30 (from, say, Troutdale to where you are forced back onto 84 right where we are going biking) you would be driving down a road that was designed to view and highlight all of these pretty little natural wonders. 

We pull into Cascade locks (which we will explore later) and find that the biking and hiking trailhead for the route 30 trail is closed off for some maintenance work on The Bridge of The Gods (which is right overhead). This is one the few bridges that crosses the Columbia river from Oregon to Washington. This one has the rather overstated name in honor of an indigenous peoples legend about a land bridge (perhaps caused by an earthquake or volcanic eruption) the was said to exist in this location. This is also the only bridge in the gorge that is so very high up. 

Since we can’t park at the route 30 trailhead, we will instead try the PCT trailhead that is just around the corner. In fact, you have to go up the entrance to the Bridge ramp to get to the trailhead parking. We get there and the parking lot (8-10 slots) is empty. 5 minutes later, it is full. Go figure. Also, there is a nice restroom at this location. 

chip gets his electronics in order

The parking lots at parks along the Gorge are a mixed bag, some are run by the state and are free. Some are run by the state and require an Oregon state parks pass. This PCT trailhead is run by the feds and requires a NW Forest Pass. My wife got me a US Seniors pass for Christmas last year. If you are old enough and still get out, these are great passes. Not only do they work for NW forest pass, but they work for other federal lands (like all National Parks) and get you discounts for camping sites and such. 

The Bike-Pedestrian-only path starts (or ends) right under the Bridge, so we coast our bikes over there. From here, we will head west. This path is essentially a one lane paved road, used by pedestrians and bike riders. No motorized vehicles are allowed. 

My New iBike. A Cannondale Neo3

When my partner and I were out looking for a eBike for her (so she could keep up with me) we saw a little sign on one of the bike displays at REI. It said something like “The state of Oregon doesn’t differentiate between eBikes and Motor vehicles. It is therefor illegal to ride an eBike on a Oregon State Park Trail. “ 

This is a little crazy. You see people riding eBikes on any paved trail at any state park you go to. In fact, forcing these bikes onto the road would not be a good thing and would only upset both the bike riders and the motorists. The trails at Fort Stephens state park (out near where the Columbia meets the ocean), for instance, are designed to keep the bikes away from the road (and give bikers and walkers a more natural experience). I am suspicious that the ‘ebikes are motorcycles’ rule has been re-evaluated or the rangers just decided that it was nonsense. The fact that the pandemic has pushed eBikes to become ubiquitous, at least around Portland, probably influences this.

Wow, a lot of talking and not much bike riding.

Here we go.

Starting off heading West and we are at first just a cement standup barrier away from the on-ramp to I84. But we soon bear right and glide down a hill into a lovely wooded area. The highway is above us, the train tracks and river just below us. You can get going fast enough down the hill that the wind ripping through your helmet makes enough noise that you can’t even hear the trucks roaring by on the interstate. A ways along and we cross under the interstate (through a trail specific bridge) and get to an old part of the old road. All along here are intersections with a Gorge hiking trail (Trail 300, I believe) and also big nice signage about historically significant stuff. Historically Significant Stuff, I say. 

historically significant sign

Some of the Points of Interest:

Eagle Creek. The trailhead for one of the most beautiful hikes in Oregon. This trail was closed (and perhaps critically injured) by the big fire a couple of years ago. It is re-open now but I haven’t had a chance to see what damage has been done. For a couple of years I have wanted to do the Eagle creek hike out to an area where there are 2 unique falls, tunnel falls and criss-cross falls. Tunnel falls is a man carved tunnel under side branch of eagle creek. Problem is, these guys are 7 miles down the trail (so a 14 mile round trip). I need to find out if the trail even goes that far anymore.

A very steep set of stairs (5 or 6 flights) lift you up out of Eagle Creek basin back to where route 30 was originally. These stairs are a killer. They have a wheel well for you to  push your bike up, but even Chip was a bit challenged to get up these things. I would have taken a long time except that my bike has a ‘walk assist’ mode and it help me push it up the stairs. I think next time I do this I will bring a length of rope. With a 20 foot piece of rope it would be easy to have one person in the lead, with the rope around his body and tied to the handle bar post, to help pull the bike up (or lower down) the steps. Do Not Fall. You go right out onto the interstate below.

Right about this area is the highest point on this ride and a beautiful sweeping view of the Gorge, Bonneville Dam, and Beacon Rock. Wow. You don’t get this view from any other people accessible location. Certainly not from the highway. 

looking up river

There are a few rivers that run through here. They pass under the highway and you don’t really see them from a car, but on this bike path you are down close and personal and have some very nice vistas of seldom viewed canyons, rapids, and rivers. 

Cars Trains and Bikes

We arrive at the parking lot at the West end of the ‘No cars’ section at the John Yeons Trailhead. There are some good views of the burn area and the dead trees left from the big fire that happened a few years ago. The fires often don't destroy the trees outright. The heat from the fire kills the trees but doesn't burn them. This leaves a lot of dead standing wood that I can only think will cause another fire sometime in the future.

dead trees from the burn

We have traveled about 7 miles. Not a long bike ride, but pleasant and stimulating. And we do have the downward part of that staircase to look forward to. Let me warn you that going down the stairs is just as hard. If you walk on the left side of your bike, the hand you have on the brakes is activating the front wheel. This is non-ideal. Both Chip and I had the problem that if we went too fast (which was still very slow) our front wheel would lock and just slide. This forces you to stop the bike with your legs instead of using the bikes brakes. A little unsettling. 

Bridge of the Gods, with a flight of military helicopters

Bonus Adventure! Chip wants to go see Thunder Island and take a special Picture !!

Thunder Island is the (sort of) man made island that was created when the locks of Cascade Locks were built to get steam river traffic around the cascade falls (what, you thought Cascade Locks was where fine shackles were made?). The lock engineers dug over to the side of the river creating a passage (with a 30 foot drop for the locks) and the land left on the inside became an island. Now the lock mechanisms themselves are gone or but the concrete walls and footings and ramps are still there. You can’t actually see much of the locks themselves because the Bonneville dam raised the river (lake) water height to above the lower and middle locks, leaving just the top of the upper lock walls visible.

(fun info here).

You can go over to the island on the little pedestrian bridge and walk around and look at the river. The island is nicely wooded, but also has a lot of grass and open area for picnic or sun enjoying. There is also a great location at the down river side of the island for an iconic view of the Bridge of The Gods. 

By the way, in the same little park, there is also a boat landing where a (perhaps slightly non-authentic) stern wheeler will take you out for a tour of the lake and the dam and such. I believe they have a lunch and a dinner cruise. (link).

Another thing to look for is indigenous fisherman net fishing for salmon off of the old lock walls. The local tribes have arrangements to build platforms on the lock walls and can often be seen fishing there. 

fishing platforms

We rode our bikes out onto the island down to the end (through the grass). I don’t know if this was strictly legal or not, but there was not any signage to the contrary. This was only a 10 minute little diversion from our ride and then we pedaled back up the hill to our car. Now…. Time for lunch !!

Lewis River Lower and Middle Falls

 Lewis River Trail

Lower Falls of the Lewis River, Washington

I have kayaked on the Lewis river before. There is a paddle that my meetup does called the 4 rivers paddle. You start on a branch of the Lewis, then (within a mile) enter the Lewis main branch and then in another mile right into the Columbia. The Lewis-Columbia confluence is right across river from Warrior Rock and just down river from Bachelor Island. So it is right there where a lot of paddling gets done. 

Now I am sure that Lewis was pretty happy with himself the day he named the river after himself (well, maybe Clark named it after Lewis) but it seems unfair that it gets named after the first white guy to float by the mouth.  I bet he never even explored it.

I think this is Yale Lake

But today we are not paddling the Lewis, we are hiking it. And we are doing so many miles up stream in the Mt Saint Helens south flank area. The Lewis starts way up there and is dammed a number of times on the way down making a string of pretty lakes. Pacific Corp runs the Dams and uses them for generating Electricity. They also own and run the parks and campgrounds around these lakes. The lakes are called Merwin, Yale, and Swift. The road going up the North side of these lakes is Washington 503 and it is the same road that you would follow to get to Lake Cave or Ape Cave (LINK to my blog on these). We are driving way up forest road 90 into the Gifford Pinchot forest. After you leave Swift lake behind, the road gets a bit narrow and torn up. You need to drive carefully and be ready to dodge fallen rocks and sunken grades. Just before you get to our campground, there is a 100 yards of road washout that is still unpaved (but passable). 

We are driving up to Lower Falls campground. We are arriving the day after the last day of reserved camping when it is first come first serve. We were hoping to get a campsite and we were not dissapointed. There were plenty and we got a nice one close enough to the river that we could here the falls at night. This campground is on a little peninsula that sticks out into a bend in the river. So it has river on 3 sides. At the West end of the campground is the Lower Falls themselves. My partner and I hiked down to that to start our hiking exercise for the day. It is a very beautiful falls. It sits right where a lava flow came out into the river so there is a nice wide steep fall going down to a very deep pool. It is also extremely popular in the on season and so a lot of signs and fences have been put up to keep people away from the cliffs and try and preserve the lives of the unwary or idiotic. At the base of the falls is a deep pool with a shallow flat rock table that extends from the shore out 20 yards or so. Looks like you could walk through 6 inch deep water right to where it drops down to 40, just a down yards from the cascading falls. If you could get down there it would be great swimming…

My partner and I then headed up river along the trail. This took us around the rim of the campground and then on up the trail toward Middle Falls (the fall namers must have been having a rough day). This is a pretty easy hike and we are not planning on going all that far today. We still have to set up our campsite and make dinner and such and…. Well and I am recovering from full knee replacement surgery and this is my first time taking this knee our for a spin on a real trail and carrying a backpack. There are some great views on this little hike and some HUGE trees. As is true in many places, the really big trees are either cut down stumps or ancient dead burned things that just weren’t worth the bother of cutting down when the lumberjacks came through a century ago.

See the pillar?

Nurse log

Out in the river a mile above the campground were a couple of cement pillars. We thought they were perhaps old uprights for a train bridge, perhaps a logging bridge. But both sides of the river were sheer cliffs at that point so no idea where a train would be going. Our second guess is that they were some sort of thing for constructing a simple small dam (perhaps out of logs) for running a log flume. I am now going to go look it up and see if someone else knows what they are. OK, it is the remains of a bridge that was built to herd sheep across when moving them up to a meadow for summer grazing. It was called “The Sheep Bridge”. So, it was probably named by the same guy that named the falls. There used to be a campsite on the South side of the bridge that people would walk over to and camp on. There is a nice memory of it here <link>.

The campsites at Lower Falls are really nice. They have huge trees, thick surrounding undergrowth and lots of space. We had a ‘normal’ size space (as opposed to a double) and there was room for at least 4 cars and 3 tents. And the neighbors are far enough away that you can’t really see or hear them (except for the one 5 year old standing on a log with a lantern and making owl noises). I mentioned the surrounding undergrowth? It was lush and beautiful, I saw bunch berry, sword fern, mahonia, and vanilla leaf (I think that is a real plant), and lots of moss.

Our Campsite (#10)

this picture taken from the picnic table in our campsite

What the campground doesn’t have is a place to dispose of waste water. A lot of campgrounds these days have places to dump waste water, usually a round clay cylinder with a screen over it that sticks up a couple of feet and leads down to drainage. But here, I guess it just goes into the forest. Doesn’t sound quite right to me, mainly because I don’t trust most campers I see to do the right thing with their waste. For instance, I often see people doing their camp dishes at the water spigot. Please keep your soap and food particles away from the water source !! That probably isn’t a problem at this site since there is only one water source and it is a huge hand pump. I wonder if there is a line at the pump during the summer when the park is full. 

The next day we drove up to the Trailhead near middle falls and then hiked on in to them. The trail was windy and soft surrounded by lots of big doug firs. You cross a bridge over a little stream with a 30 foot fall. At one point there was what looked to be a dry stream bed but it was very smooth and covered with a thin layer of green moss. I suspect this may have been an old lava flow.

The middle falls are reached by a little switch back trail right at a little signed crossroads. They are pretty nice though not as spectacular as the lower falls. After visiting the falls we hiked a ways up the main trail toward the upper falls. We just wanted some more exercise. The trail here is all very sheer down to the rive with some huge cliffs towering (and overhanging) in some places. Toward the river is always an extremely steep slide. So we turn around and are heading back toward the car and just before we got back to the nice switch back trail down to the middle falls we see this older couple (i.e. my age) working their way down the hill very carefully. It is very steep and the woman is following the man with some evident hesitation. She is wearing shorts and tennis shoes and neither of them is carrying a rope. I was thinking “gee, that isn’t too smart” but my partner was a bit nicer and called out “hi” to them. They stopped and said hi and the guy asked if the view of the falls was worth this climb down in the gully. Holy Crap. We straightened them out. Told them that there was a nice trail just back along here 50 feet. With a sign and everything (OK, I didn’t say that). They were both very relieved. My partner was of the opinion that the woman just need a little more help saying No. Or perhaps “Hell No”. 

signs at the middle falls turn

Middle falls

big trees

These are huge roots growing along side the trail from a big tree above.

This was late in the season, last nice weekend in September, and we saw maybe 10 people out on the trail. This trail must be LOADED during the summer. Probably because people read about how nice it is in my blog.