Today’s trip was a totally different trip than what I usually do. The original plan was to hike the White Iris trail to see if the iris were in full bloom yet, but the weather forecast kept getting worse and worse. The forecast was for a very wet day and while I’m not opposed to hiking in some rain, this looked to be a soaker and I wasn’t sure I was up for that. There have been several abandoned trails people have told me about on the east side and I looked at the pinpoint forecast for areas east and south of us and while it was still going to rain, it looked like it would start a bit later and not rain quite as much. Given the fact that there would be driving between these places we’d also be in the truck more of the day. I pitched the idea to Kirk and he thought it sounded interesting, so the plan was a go.

We started out about our normal time and drove down the Clackamas – driving down the river, it didn’t look all that great, but as we got farther east and south, it started to clear a bit. The first objective was an old trail that was named the “3 Amigos trail” since it apparently had a sign on it that said “3 Amigos Trail” – that piqued my interest. It was up the 4660 road which I had never driven before. We drove up the road and eventually found the spot where the trail was supposed to be. There was a dispersed campsite next to a decommissioned road. All I knew was that the trail was supposed to head west towards a small hill and then got lost in some rhodies.

We suited up and then split up into the woods looking for the sign, blazes or tread. It took us a while but we finally found some blazes and tread. We followed them up to the top of the small hill west of the 4660 road but the rhodies got very thick up there (which is what I was told), so we headed back down. On the way down, we found quite a few blazes – there wasn’t much tread in that area, but there were quite a few blazes that had all been painted red. Here is one of the blazes:

Both of us were really intrigued by the “3 Amigos” sign, so we walked around quite a bit looking for the sign. We wandered in different directions but you can’t go too far until you get into a cut – but I felt like we covered the uncut area pretty well. Most of it (until you got up to the top of the hill) was pretty open – there were quite a few logs down in it, but not a ton of brush. After an hour or so of searching, we gave up on finding the sign. It was almost noon, so we decided to eat lunch in the truck. While we were eating, it started spitting rain a bit – not a lot, but it was the first rain we had seen all morning.

After that partial success, we started on our way to the second location – an old abandoned trail near Bear Skull Springs that was a pretty short segment that got lost in an old cut. As we were driving down to that point, Kirk was looking at the map – we were in the vicinity of Poop Creek – I just had to go see what poop creek looked like – so we went on a side road (the 4660-061 spur) – it didn’t go very far before it was closed so we stopped and walked up the road. Kirk didn’t want to walk to decommissioned road, so he went thru the woods (which were pretty clear). I got to the Poop Creek crossing and it was a bit anticlimatic – it was barely running and you could only see it if you looked the right way thru all the brush:

I walked over to Kirk who was south of me. We decided to walk up to the Poop Creek quarry just to see what that looked like. That was a bit more interesting this whole bunch of rocks just kind of appeared out of nowhere. This is where we think they dug rocks out of the quarry:

After looking around at the old quarry, we headed back up the road and back to the truck and then proceeded to our next stop – the old trail near Bear Skull Springs.

We got to an area on the 4220 road east of the springs and headed out. The 4220 road in this area is VERY wide and also has a “buffer” on each side of it. It was done after the 2020 fires – I think it is intended to be used as a firebreak in the future.

We wandered around in the dense small trees right off the road but were not seeing anything – it was tough going due to all the small trees. We then found a couple of blazes and we got more off the road and it got a little easier. We found blazes and a rough corridor up to the cut area. We turned around and headed back and we saw a whole line of blazes heading back in a slightly different direction – and with reasonable tread in place as well:

And another blaze:

The blazes were very consistent, and all painted red. As we were following the blazes back, there was what appeared to be a collapsed rock cairn. We think it might have been a marker for this water source (could this have been Bear Skull Springs? Maybe? But the map would be wrong)

We continued following blazes like this – with reasonable tread:

Until we got near the road and found a very old trailhead sign board with a red arrow pointing down the trail:

After that I had gotten pretty wet from pushing thru all the brush, so I went back to the truck. Kirk wanted to find the other blazes we had seen at the beginning – he did find them and we assumed those first blazes were a different alignment of the same trail – the old maps don’t show any other trails in the area – this trail originally went all the way up to Big Bottom and the Pot Creek Cabin – it followed Pinhead creek much of the way.

After successfully finding that trail (especially the pretty good trail coming back) we were more excited to see what the next exploration netted us. The next exploration was to find the trail heading south from Summit Lake.

By this time, the rain had come, although it was still pretty spotty and light – not too bad. We piled back in the truck and headed back north to the 42-141 spur over to the Summit Lake Campground. When we first got there, I continued on the road, thinking there would be some sort of loop for the campground, but the campground is basically a walk in campground, so there is no loop. When I realized my mistake, I turned around and went back and parked near the first campsite. There was no one there (although we had encountered one lone car when we were driving in on the 141 spur road).

We got out of the truck and started walking over to the campground – I’d never been here before so it was a bit unknown. I wasn’t sure if there was a trail going along the lake or what. We finally found the “main” trail which went right thru almost all of the campsites. I’m guessing there were 8-10 campsites. At one point, the trail curved over to the lake for a short bit – I took a couple pictures of Summit Lake:

The trail quickly veered back into the woods and turned away from the lake on a more southerly route. The trail in this area was in really good shape – you could tell that people have hiked it and it has been mostly maintained.

The trail continued to be pretty good until we got to the 147 spur road (which does not appear on many maps – I think it is a more recent road):

After the road crossing, the trail took a definite turn for the worse. There were no more cut logs and the tread was intermittent. There were blazes for the most part, but the tread was getting fainter – and the logs were getting more numerous. Here is a typical decent segment of trail after the road crossing:

We continued along the trail, following it without too much difficulty – the trail is kind of interesting – it takes a very gradual uphill grade – it is almost like a wash you are walking up. If it weren’t for all the logs, it would be a pretty pleasant trail to walk. I kind of wanted to see where it went. The notes I saw kind of sounded like it might go up to the small butte to the south of Summit Lake, but the old maps seem to indicate it pretty much just went south to warm springs meadow. The rain was getting more regular and a little harder and it was after 3:00 or so. We finally reached our limit when we encountered this huge mess – this was our turnaround spot:

Neither of us wanted to fight all those logs – there were probably 40 or more logs that were visible heading up that hill – and most likely a lot more beyond. Looking at the map, it looks like if we went about another mile, we would get to the end of the 42-330 spur road which would take you to Warm Springs Meadow. That might be a trip for another day……

As it was, we decided to turn around and head back. I think it was about 3:30 and we still had to hike back and attempt our last adventure of the day – driving to the top of Peavine Mountain. The trip back seemed longer than the trip in – I’m sure part of it was because my legs were getting tired from climbing over all the logs we’d been doing all day long. When we got to an area just south of Summit Lake, I took a picture of the nice meadow that was there – we had come thru here on the way in but I didn’t take a picture:

We got back to the truck a little after 4 – we were wet and tired. I told Kirk that I was done hiking for the day and he agreed. But we still had the attempt to get to the top of Peavine. I told him if the road was closed that I wasn’t walking the road – if we couldn’t drive up there it would have to wait for another day.

We continued on the 42-141 spur road past Summit Lake Campground – it got to a 4 way intersection where we continued straight and then passed between Sheep and Peavine Spring. There was a very large dispersed camping area near there as well. Just past the springs, the 140 spur joined and we found out that the road to the top had been decommissioned/closed. I was ready to call it a day but Kirk the navigator saw there was another approach – from the south. I turned around and went back up to the 4 way intersection, turned right and headed south down to 4210 and then to 4661 and finally to the 180 spur. The 180 spur was not in too bad of shape. Someone has been keeping it cut out, although a few spots got a bit brushy. As we were climbing (the road really wasn’t all that steep – Peavine is a very broad mountain north to south), we could see we were climbing into the clouds. I figured there would not be any views up there – the rain had come in earnest as well. It still wasn’t a hard rain but it was pretty consistent at this point. We had been fortunate to escape the bulk of the rain most of the day.

After a bit more driving, we finally got to the top of Peavine Mountain:

It was kind of anticlimatic – there were no view and it honestly wasn’t all that interesting – except for the fact that you could actually drive to the top of a mountain. We didn’t even get out of the truck – I turned around and headed down. When we got to the junction with the 205 spur (the one that came in from the north), I turned down it to see how far it was open. Kirk wondered if they kept it open to the quarry. It wasn’t long before we got to the quarry and a very large turnaround spot – the road was closed just past the quarry. We turned around and headed for home.

It is kind of a long drive out to this side of the district, but I think the plan for the day worked out pretty well. We escaped the worst of the rain and got to see some new areas and new abandoned trails. The last adventure of the day was stopping at the new Fearless & Co in Estacada for dinner. While the strong scotch was as good as ever, the service was still incredibly slow – I hope that improves, otherwise I think that place is headed for closure just like Time Travelers.

A very interesting, good day of Exploring.