Alder Flats

I had quite the unintentional adventure today!  I woke up very excited about going up the the Hawk Mountain lookout which is in Mt. Hood National Forest.  It was supposed to be about 8 miles round trip and one of the best views of Mt. Jefferson in the state.  I followed my directions to the T and when I found the road I was supposedly supposed to take I thought - oh crap.  The hiking guide said it was gravel but this was more like an ATV road.  I wasn't actually sure if this was the road because I was confused anyways so I turned back before I ran out of gas up in the national forest.   And I certainly wasn't going to take my VW Jetta up that thing anyways.  I managed to drive back to Ripplebrook Guard Station and found a ranger that told me I was completely in the wrong spot!  I guess there is a Ripplebrook Guard Station AND a Ripplebrook campsite AND a Ripplebrook trail, beside the actual Ripple Brook itself.  So when the guide book said to turn at Ripplebrook I turned at the first one I came to, the guard staion.  I was VERY glad I didn't try to go up the road to nowhere and decided just to hike Alder Flats today since it was only a half mile away at that point.  I'm absolutely going to try to do Hawk Mountain again next week and hopefully we'll have at least one nice day so I can enjoy it.

I had an utterly disastrous camping experience at Alder Flats last summer and I was hesitant to do this trail again but decided to go for it and see what happened.  It was beautiful of course and I'm glad I didn't let my psyche talk me out of it. It's about a mile downhill to the campsite on the bank of the Clackamas River.  The trail follows a pretty stagnant pool (creek?) and I had to deal with a few mosquitoes on the way but once you branch away from the creek it wasn't a problem anymore.  The river bank is a wonderful place to have a picnic and swim and would make a great day outing for anyone. It's very scenic and quiet and I found some interesting wildflowers, including this wild orchid.  I also saw a few garter snakes (actually about 4) so if you're snakephobic I wouldn't want to hang out there very long. I saw one snake that was at least 3 to 4 feet long so these weren't just itty bitty snakes I'm talking about.  I enjoyed the hike very much and it wasn't that hard, but just enough to get some exercise out of it.

It was eerily silent the entire hike, no birds calls or anything!  I had been trying to figure out why there were no birds and decided that clearly the only reasons for that was because A) there was a bear or mountain lion on the trail, or B) a natural disaster like an earthquake or landslide was about to occur.  I was thinking about my best bear fighting technique when out of no where this g-d squirrel jumps onto a branch directly next to my head!  I seriously screamed like a little girl and almost fell into the creek.  Luckily I figured this probably scared off any bears so I was good to go for the rest of the hike!

The drive takes about an hour and a half to get to Alder Flats, past Estacada out highway 224.  It's a beautiful drive that follows the Clackamas River with gorgeous views.  I suggest everyone at least take this drive even if you're not going to hike, it's definitely a national forest for a reason!