Ferry Springs Trail – wanderingyuncks

Our unusually warm and alarming dry winter continued through the end of January which has resulted an extremely low snowpack. While that doesn’t bode well for summer it provided plenty of dry hiking opportunities during the month, another of which I took advantage of before flipping the calendar to February. It was another solo outing so picked an area Heather had been to previously, the Lower Deschutes River, and planned a slightly different route than we’d done on our visit in 2018 (post).

I made the two-and-a-half-hour drive from Salem to the Deschutes River State Recreation Area and parked in the overnight parking lot currently shown on Google Maps as the Old RailBed Trail Parking. There is a slightly closer trailhead which we parked at on our previous visit, but that section of the park was not yet open for the season. I had arrived just before sunrise and had expected mostly cloudy conditions. The forecast showed the sky cover gradually decreasing to 60% around 10:30am then starting to increase again. I had not anticipated how low that cloud cover would be. It wasn’t quite fog but it was about as close as you can come.

The overnight parking lot.

Old stagecoach at the parking lot.

My plan was to follow the Deschutes River for close to three hours then turn around and possibly hike the Ferry Springs Loop on my way back as we’d done in 2018. That detour would depend on the clouds though. I wasn’t willing to climb 500′ just to wind up in fog with no views. Plan B would be to return along the river unless I was seeing any ticks in which case I’d stick to the railroad grade as much as possible.

I set off on the Deschutes River Trail which is an old railroad grade.

The first mile from where I’d parked was new trail for me. Due to the low clouds the views were limited but the river was visible at least.

After a mile I came to a signed trail junction with pointers for the Blackberry and Riverview Trails.

These were new signs since my last visit, and they had also renamed the trails. The Blackberry Trail was named the River Trail in 2018 and the Riverview Trail was the Middle Trail. That’s neither here nor there though since I was sticking to the Deschutes River Trail (which was simply the “Bicycle Trail” in 2018). A tenth of a mile from this junction I passed a junction with the Ferry Springs Trail on the left.

The dirt Riverview Trail on the hillside below.

The northern end of the Ferry Springs Trail.

I continued on the Deschutes River Trail for another for another 1.1-miles to the junction with the southern end of the Riverview Trail. This was another new section for me.

A junco peeking out through some branches.

Caterpillars

Is that a break in the clouds?

Western meadowlark

Still a little early for flowers but I did spot these phlox about to bloom.

The Riverview Trail is just beyond the large signboard announcing the Lower Deschutes River Wildlife Area.

Just beyond the Riverview Trail junction I came to the southern Ferry Springs Trail junction.

The next 1.4-miles on the Deschutes River Trail to Gordon Canyon was a repeat of 2018.

This probably qualifies as fog.

American kestral

Some blue in the sky above the canyon.

Starting to descend into Gordon Canyon.

Gordon Creek

In 2018 we’d turned off the Deschutes River Trail here and visited Colorado Camp 0.2-miles downriver before heading back on the River Trail (aka the Blackberry Trail). This time I continued on going heading deeper in the canyon.

Colorado Camp is down the road on the right.

Looking back toward Gordon Canyon and some blue sky.

Shortly after climbing out of the canyon the trail passes the Gordon Cliffs below Gordon Butte.

Coming up on the Gordon Cliffs.

The cliffs have some interesting basalt formations.

Folds

Rock pigeon

Townsend’s solitaire

The “Eye”.

Mile four.

Magpie showing off its tail.

Cormorant

Common goldeneyes and a common merganser.

By mile five there was quite a bit more blue sky.

A sandy beach along the Deschutes River.

Mallards

Looking up toward Gordon Butte.

At mile six a train passed by on the far side of the river, one of several on the day.

It was a quarter to ten when I passed Mile 6 and given that I was likely moving at a little over 2.5mph I decided to make Mile 7 my turn around point. I did not account for there not being a post at Mile 7 so after another 30 minutes of hiking I turned around.

Mallards and common goldeneyes

I was spending a lot of time scanning the hillsides for bighorn sheep.

Seagull with a fish.

More common goldeneyes.

Passing the former site of Free Bridge. An 1887 bridge built by Wasco County allowing for a free crossing of the river. The bridge was upgraded in 1905 and apparently blown up in 1914 by someone opposed to it, possibly someone(s) who operated a competing toll bridge.

The remains of Free Bridge.

Four cormorants standing on rocks and two common mergansers.

My turn around spot. This was about 10.5-miles from where Heather and I had turned around on our Macks Canyon hike along the river in 2018 (post).

I had gone four tenths of a mile beyond the 7-mile mark. I was happy to be heading away from the sun as I headed back which made the views better.

Passing the Free Bridge site again.

I had started to think it wasn’t going to be my day for spotting bighorn sheep but then I spotted something a little off top of a cliff up the hillside.

Can you spot it?

She had spotted me.

We watched each other for quite a while before she decided I was no threat and went back to grazing.

That was the only sheep I saw but given how seldom we are even hiking in bighorn sheep habitat, it was more than enough. After she went back to eating, I continued my hike.

Another access road down to an outhouse and camps.

Great blue heron

When I got back to the Gordon Cliffs, I found the clouds/fog again.

Gordon Canyon

At Gordon Canyon I turned off the Deschutes River Trail and onto the unsigned Blackberry Trail.

As I made my way along the grassy track I occasionally checked to make sure, I wasn’t picking up any ticks which can be an issue here in both winter and spring. I saw a lot of birds but no ticks.

Yellow-rumped warbler

Geese and common goldeneyes.

I took a spur trail back up to the Deschutes River Trail before reaching the southern end of the Ferry Springs Trail to give myself that option if the cloud cover wasn’t too much.

Rock wren

Ferry Springs Trail on the right with the Riverview Trail ahead on the left.

Looking up the Ferry Springs Trail gave me no confidence that I would get any views along that trail, so I went with Plan B and turned onto the Riverview Trail.

Nope

The Riverview starts at a rock arch and heads uphill to the right of it nearly parallel to the Deschutes River Trail.

Looking down at the junction from the Riverview Trail.

After 0.4-miles on the Riverview Trail I came to a junction with a pointer for the Blackberry Trail. I had the choice of sticking to the Riverview Trail or dropping down to the Blackberry Trail. Both would lead me to the Lower Deschutes Trailhead. I decided I’d rather be closer to the river, so I dropped down.

I turned right on the Blackberry Trail and followed it 1.4-miles to Lower Deschutes Trailhead.

Song sparrow

Blackberry bushes along the Blackberry Trail.

The empty Lower Deschutes Trailhead at the end of the dog area.

From the Lower Deschutes Trailhead I walked up the park entrance road 0.4-miles to the Old Railbed Trailhead.

Geese

Oregon Trail information.

My hike came in at 14.8-miles with approximately 400′ of cumulative elevation gain.

Despite the cloudy conditions this was a nice hike. The trails were not busy and there was a good amount of wildlife. The highlight was seeing a bighorn sheep on a hike for the first time since 2019. Happy Trails!

Flickr: Lower Deschutes River

It’s been awhile since our last post but we have a good excuse, we were busy hiking. Eight straight days of hiking in fact. 😊

For the last two years we’ve had plans to visit SE Oregon in May but each time our vacation week arrived so did rain in the forecast. Since May wasn’t working out we decided to give June a try. A dry Spring had things looking promising but a system moved in at the end of the week prior to our leaving that had us a little worried. There was rain in the Willamette Valley (and snow in Cascades) but our destinations looked like they would escape mostly dry. At least dry enough that we could rearrange a few of our planned hikes to let things dry a bit before attempting the drives that would be impassible if wet.

Before we could even attempt those hikes we had to get to SE Oregon. Conventional wisdom would have had us driving through Bend via Santiam Pass but we aren’t conventional. First the Sisters Rodeo was happening which meant even more traffic than usual in that little town. More importantly we wanted to squeeze a hike in on the way to Bend were we planned to stay with Heather’s parents again.

Following up on our recent hike along the Deschutes River at Macks Canyon (post) we decided to kick off our eight days of hiking at the Deschutes River Recreation Area near the mouth of the river. From Salem we drove north to Portland and took Interstate 84 ten miles east of The Dalles to the park. It seems a bit odd to kick off a SE Oregon vacation with a hike near the northern border of the State, but it’s a hike we hadn’t done yet and it was sort of on the way.

We parked at the end of the park and walked across a grassy area to a trail sign at the far end where we followed a pointer for the River Trail.

Unlike the trail at Macks Canyon, the River Trail stayed close to the water.

We stayed right at junctions sticking to the River Trail where we passed several groups of Canada geese.

The trail did climb away from the river to cross over a rocky area at the 1.5 mile mark.

Pigeons kept an eye on us as we passed the rocky cliffs and a family of mergansers sat on a rock in the river below.

The trail improved again beyond the rocks and it passed below a rock arch.

A short distance beyond the arch we passed Rattlesnake Rapids.

Up to this point we’d seen a few flowers and an interesting dragon fly.

Showy milkweed

Chicory

Blanket flower

After 3 miles on the River Trail we passed by a 10 acre wheat field.

At the far end of the wheat field we followed an old dirt roadbed uphill to a gravel road where we turned right, crossed small Gordon Creek and veered right again on another dirt roadbed down to a primitive camp site.

After checking out a small beach where one could wade in the river we headed back to the gravel road.

The road led up to the same old railroad grade that we had followed on our hike at Macks Canyon.

Here the grade is in good shape and used by bicyclists as well as hikers.

We followed the old railroad grade for a mile and a half from the primitive camp to a signboard.

The unmarked Ferry Springs Trail led off to the right a little before the sign and use paths to the left of the sign led to a view of the rock arch from above.

After checking out the arch we took the Ferry Springs Trail uphill.

This trail gained nearly 500′ as it climbed up and then traversed the hillside above the Deschutes River.

As we gained elevation we also gained more wildflowers, primarily yellow blanket flower and purple lupine.

Just over three quarters of a mile along this trail we came to Ferry Springs where we crossed a brushy creek.

A lizard greeted us on the far side of the creek.

The trail then passed a less than informative sign and passed through an old fence.

Beyond the fence the trail began to descend back down toward the river. From here we had a good view of the river’s confluence with the Columbia.

Near the end, the trail follows a section of the Oregon Trail.

After almost 1.75 miles on the Ferry Springs Trail we arrived back at the railroad grade. Here we had the choice of following it back to the parking area or continuing on hiker only trails. We opted for the hiker trail and flowed a pointer on the far side of the bike path.

This trail traversed the hillside between the River Trail and the bike path and brought us back to the start of the River Trail in just under three quarters of a mile.

The hike came in just over 8 miles which was a nice way to start a week of hiking. It had been pretty windy (not unusual for the area) but the rain had stayed to the west which we took as an encouraging sign for the rest of our trip. We left the Deschutes and headed east to Biggs Junction where we took Highway 97 south to Bend and had a nice visit with Heather’s parents before heading further east (and south) for more adventures. Happy Trails!

Flickr: Lower Deschutes River