Wolf rock – wanderingyuncks

Tidbits Mountain – 6/29/2019

As we continued to let the weather dictate our vacation plans we couldn’t pass up a “sunny” morning forecast for Tidbits Mountain near Blue River, OR. Another of Sullivan’s featured hikes, the trip to the site of a former lookout tower atop Tidbits Mountain is just 4.4 miles round trip from the Tidbits South Trailhead. This was actually a bit of a problem as the drive from Salem was a little over two and a half hours which meant our hiking time would most likely not be greater than our driving time which would break our rule of not driving longer than hiking. Our original plan to solve this was going to be making a second stop at the Lower McKenzie River Trailhead where we could hike as far as we liked on the McKenzie River Trail, but while researching the Tidbits Mountain hike another option presented itself.

The Gold Hill Trail travels 3.2 miles along a ridge to a junction with the Tidbits Mountain Trail three quarters of a mile from the summit of Tidbits Mountain. Instead of driving to a different trailhead we could spend some time on the Gold Hill Trail which the Forest Service warned sees only periodic maintenance.

We started our hike not at the Tidbits South Trailhead but rather along Forest Road 1509 where FR 877 headed uphill .2 miles to the trailhead on the left.
FR 877 at FR 1509

Both the Forest Service and Sullivan pointed out that FR 877 was steep and Sullivan added that turning around at the trailhead was “awkward”, thus our decision to walk up the road.

As we hiked up the road there were a couple of views of the rocky pinnacles of Tidbits Mountain on the left.

A sign marked the start of the Tidbits Mountain Trail.

The trail climbed gradually for 1.3 miles to a junction on a ridge crest. This section of trail passed through some old growth trees and was full of rhododendron blooms. It was by far the best display of rhododendron that we had seen.

There were a few other flowers along the way as well but none in anywhere near the numbers as the rhodies.
Penstemon

Showy phlox

Anemone

Iris

Arnica

At the junction we turned left following a pointer for the Tidbits Mountain Lookout.

This section of trail traversed a rocky hillside on the north side of Tidbits Mountain. Being on the north facing slope trillium were still in bloom and a few remnants of glacial lilies remained.

20190629_080903

The talus slopes below Tidbits Mountain allowed for some previews of the views to come at the summit.

Looking west toward the Green Mountain Lookout.

Green Mountain Lookout

Mt. Jefferson

Three Fingered Jack

The talus is also home to one of our favorite wild animals, the pika! They are not particularly easy to see but once you know what you are looking for with a little luck you’ll spot one of these rabbit relatives. It was a lucky day for us as we spotted two.
There is at least one pika in this picture.

There is another one in this picture.

When we weren’t scanning the rocks for pikas we did a lot of looking up at the formations above us.

Columbine and solomonseal in the talus slope.

Last of the snow along the talus.

At a saddle a half mile from the junction with the Gold Hill Trail we came to a second junction. This one was unsigned. To the right a trail headed downhill to the Tidbits West Trailhead. The Gold Hill Trail used to continue straight here but it was so faint and overgrown that we didn’t even see it on the first pass. We turned uphill to the left and began the steep .2 mile climb to the summit.

Catchfly on the way up.

Lookout remains below the summit.

Foundation remains

Wildflowers at the summit.

The 360 degree view from the summit was very good although our timing meant the sun was overhead between us and the Cascades impacting the ability to get clear photos of those mountains.
NE we could see Mt. Hood, Mt. Jefferson, and Three Fingered Jack.

Mt. Hood

Mt. Jefferson behind Iron Mountain and Cone Peak

Three Fingered Jack

The eastern view added Mt. Washington, The Three Sisters, and Mt. Bachelor.

Mt. Washington

Three Sisters

Mt. Bachelor

We could also just make out the lookout tower atop nearby Carpenter Mountain (post).

To the SE we could make out Maiden Peak, Mt. Thielsen, and Diamond Peak.

Maiden Peak (post)

Mt. Thielsen (post)

Diamond Peak

We spent a good amount of time on the summit taking in the view before descending to a lower viewpoint with a number of flowers.

Cat’s ear lilies

Oregon sunshine amid buckwheat

Penstemon and paintbrush

A fleabane or aster

Looking down from the lower viewpoint.

We then headed back down to the trail junction where we found the faint tread of Historical Gold Hill Trail. We followed it just far enough to get a close up view of a flower garden.

Western wallflower

Larkspur

20190629_092727 Paintbrush

20190629_093003 Cinquefoil

We returned to the Tidbits Mountain Trail and recrossed the talus slopes, this time we didn’t spot any pikas. We did stop to admire some of the flowers though.
20190629_093755 Baneberry

20190629_093642 Current

Bleeding heart, trillium and wood violets

20190629_093952 Wood violet

With the Sun starting to pass overhead Mt. Jefferson was a little more photogenic.

When we arrived back at the junction with the Gold Hill Trail we briefly searched for any sign of a former shelter that was indicated on the map.

After failing to uncover any sign of it we headed out on the Gold Hill Trail. Given the Forest Service mentioned that this trail only receives periodic maintenance we weren’t sure how far we might go but we were curious to check it out.

The trail was pretty overgrown, not crowded with brush, but it had a lot of vegetation growing in the middle of it indicating a lack of use.

We soon passed a rock outcrop where a patch of small monkeyflowers were blooming.

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We followed the trail a total of 2.7 miles losing a total of 800′ through a series of ups and downs as it followed a ridge to the north and east. We passed through some lovely forest filled with more blooming rhododendron and by several rock outcrops. There were occasional views of the Three Sisters and Mt. Bachelor through the trees and also spotted some deer, at least one doe and fawn, as they dashed away through the trees. Despite the lack of use and periodic maintenance the trail was in pretty good shape with just a few trees to step over.

North and Middle Sister

Mt. Bachelor

20190629_104300 Showy phlox

Washington lilies getting ready to bloom

At the 2.7 mile mark the trail began a final 400′ descent in the remaining half mile to FR 1509. We weren’t overly keen on having to climb back up that just to say we reached the road plus we had set an 11:30 turn around time and it was just after 11:20. We noticed an open knoll just off trail to the right so we decided to check it out and make this be our turn around spot.

The knoll turned out to be very interesting. In addition to some nice views there were a number of flowers.

The Two Girls

Mt. Washington and the Three Sisters

Wolf Rock an Mt. Washington

North Sister

Middle Sister

South Sister

Mt. Jefferson had been overtaken by clouds but Iron Mountain and Cone Peak were still visible.

Buckwheat and paintbrush

Wallflower and cat’s ear lilies

Penstemon and paintbrush

After exploring the knoll we headed back looking for anything we missed on our first pass. We did notice a couple of interesting old tree trunks and a grouse crossed the trail in front of us.

Young tree growing out of an old trunk.

Grouse

We made our way back to the Tidbits Mountain Trail and returned to the trailhead without seeing another person until we ran into a gentleman at the trailhead who seemed to just be out for a drive and looking around. We ended up with a 10.5 mile hike which was perfect. It was a nice way to end our vacation. Happy Trails!

Flickr: Tidbits Mountain

Lookout Creek & Carpenter Mountain

We found ourselves doing some last minute schedule rearranging due to an ever changing weather forecast. After deciding against a possibly wet overnight trip along the Salmon River we chose a pair of hikes we had originally planned on doing in early June. We picked these because they gave us options. The Lookout Creek Old-Growth Trail wasn’t view dependent so it didn’t matter if it was raining or partly sunny. We did however want at least partly sunny skies for the shorter hike to the lookout tower atop Carpenter Mountain so our plan was to decide on our way to Blue River, OR which hike to start with. Worst case scenario was that it showered all day in which case we would just hike the Lookout Creek Trail and save Carpenter Mountain for another time.

It was a misty drive south to Eugene and more of the same as we drove east from there on Highway 126 to Blue River so we headed to the Lookout Creek West Trailhead. The trail passes through the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, a 16,000 acre portion of the Willamette National Forest supported by Oregon State University and the U.S. Forest Service. The trail begins and ends on Forest Road 1506 making a car shuttle possible.

From the west trailhead the trail descended quickly down to Lookout Creek.

A small footbridge crossed a marshy area just prior to reaching a much longer bridge spanning Lookout Creek.

The trail then climbed steeply away from the creek up a ridge for about a mile then began traversing the hillside several hundred feet above the creek. The old-growth forest was the star of the hike.

Several types of wildflowers were either blooming or preparing to bloom along the way.
Red flowering currant

Large solomonseal

Oregon grape

Vanilla leaf

Violets

Trillium and bleeding heart

Bunchberry

Beargrass

Wildlife was confined to the smaller varieties.

Crab spider on trillium

Rough-skinned newt

A mile and a half from the west trailhead was the only real viewpoint along the trail. A rock outcrop there looked out over the Lookout Creek Valley.

From the viewpoint we could see that the clouds seemed to be breaking up which gave us some hope that by the time we were finished with this hike it might be clear enough to warrant the visit to Carpenter Mountain.

Beyond the viewpoint the trail crossed several small seasonal streams. Only one of these crossing was a little tricky. The log over the stream was angled down which made it a little awkward to cross.

The trail dropped back down to a second crossing of Lookout Creek before climbing back up to Road 1506 at the eastern trailhead. The bridge and the creek where much smaller at this end.

Our guidebook had described the trail in part as “A woodsy 6.3-mi trail….” (since corrected in subsequent printings) so we had been thinking that hiking the entire trail out-and-back would be 12.6 miles but a sign at this trailhead indicated that the trail was only 3.5 miles one way.

We returned the way we’d come passing a handful of hikers on the way back to our car. Since the hike wound up only being 7 miles instead of 12.6 we made it back to the car at a quarter after eleven. The sky above seemed clear enough to give Carpenter Mountain a try. The trailhead for Carpenter Mountain is located on Forest Road 350 which we had passed on Road 1506 less than a quarter mile from the Lookout Creek West Trailhead. We drove back to Road 350 and turned onto it heading uphill (north) for approximately 5 miles to a pullout at a saddle. Even though the snow pack is below normal this year, we weren’t entirely certain that we would make to the trailhead which was at an elevation just over 4400′. We knew from our Patterson Mountain outing just two weeks prior that there was still some snow present in areas starting around 4000′ feet and we had even seen one very small patch of snow along the Lookout Creek Trail around 3400′.
Snow in the bushes along the Lookout Creek Trail

The road was in pretty good shape, it appeared that the Forest Service had taken care of the trees that had fallen over the winter and aside from a few rocks here and there the drive was fine. Near the trailhead there was some snow present along the shoulder of the road but that was it. We parked at the saddle which had a decent view east to several mountains.

A short walk up the road brought us to the signed trail.

The trail climbed up through huckleberry bushes just beginning to get their leaves.

It wasn’t long before we hit the first section of snow covered trail.

For a short while the trail occasionally popped out from under the melting snow.

We had micro spikes with us but never needed them. The trail actually became snow free after about four tenths of a mile and at the half mile mark passed through a hillside meadow with a few yellow glacier lilies.

The meadow allowed for views SSW to Diamond Peak.

Beyond the meadow the trail wound its way up Carpenter Mountain through a forest that had lots of debris down from the winter.

A little under a mile from the car the trail passed an opening where we could see the basalt cliffs of Carpenter Mountain’s summit and the lookout tower atop them.

The trail took us around to the east side of the mountain where we climbed up the rocks to the lookout tower.

Looking back down at the route up

The tower wasn’t staffed yet for the season so we had the summit to ourselves. There were still some clouds in the sky but overall the views were pretty darn good. Mt. Jefferson was a little obscured and Mt. Hood was completely hidden but the rest of the Cascades from Three Fingered Jack to Diamond Peak were on full display.
Mt. Jefferson, Three Fingered Jack and Mt. Washington

Belknap & Black Craters, The Three Sisters & The Husband, and Mt. Bachelor

Diamond Peak

View from the Carpenter Mountain Lookout Panorama

One of the most interesting sights from the lookout is Wolf Rock, a monolith just to the north.

We took a nice long break at the tower and tried to identify as many of the visible peaks as possible. Starting to the north:
Iron Mountain and Cone Peak (post) with Battle Ax Mountain (post) between in the distance.

Browder Ridge (post)

Mt. Jefferson

Maxwell Butte (post) and Three Fingered Jack

Mt. Washington

Belknap Crater (post) and Black Crater (post)

The Three Sisters and The Husband

Mt. Bachelor

Fuji Mountain (post) and Diamond Peak

Tidbits Mountain

The thought of an actual meal finally tore us away and we headed back down. It was a great reward for a relatively easy two mile hike. Even though the trail gained over 900′ of elevation over the course of the mile it was a fairly gradual climb. The old-growth trail had also been very nice, it was a pretty forest with lots of bird song. All in all not a bad way to spend a day. Happy Trails!

Flickr: Lookout Creek & Carpenter Mountain