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  • 4610 and Lookout Springs Camp

    Well, to answer my own question, the snow is indeed blocking 4610 at the high point, just at the terrible road up to Squaw Mountain Lookout.  It's still many feet deep so it will be a few more weeks before the route is clear.

    We wound up at Plan B Camp.  Lookout Springs actually, or should I call it Torn Up Springs due to all the ATV damage?  That place was surely a mess, one of the worst areas I've seen yet in the Clackamas.  Generations of garbage everywhere in this beautiful and historic camp, built in the 20s in lovely 2nd growth forest.  It was embarrasing to take a friend on his first wilderness trip to such a place, but after hours of cleaning (we filled up almost 4 large garbage bags with trash) it felt more like a tidy camp.  Also found the remains of the guard station foundation across 4610.

    Hiked down towards the Roaring River.  I noticed that the Huxley Lake trail is approved for ATV use (big FS sign at the jct.)...That doesn't seem right due to the damage and neglect caused by those machines at the camp..."user trails" torn all thru the woods..it doesn't appear the Forest Service does much to dissuade this behavior.  We made it down about 2 miles, to just where the insane switchbacks begin.  The ATV damage stops about 1 mile down the trail.  Really beautiful once you get away from the idiot zone.  I trimmed much brush (salal, rhododendrons) but it's still a bit shaggy down there due to the low use this trail gets.

    The icing on the cake was spending the entire weekend in the clouds and rain, only to return to Portland, dry and sunny....

    4610 and Lookout Springs Camp
  • Re: 4610 and Lookout Springs Camp (#)
  • 5/29/07; 6:49:32 PM ¦ by Donovan
  • The FS has a plan in the works to designate finite ORV areas.  These will not be included.
    With a little snow at the saddle just north of Squaw Mtn, it would be possible to hike into Twin Springs on the 502 trail from the 4614 Rd.
    Lookout Springs is an abused site, that's for sure.  The FS has tried to restore the site.
    That was great to get the trash! Some of my recent trash finds have been a rice cooker, a water heater, birth control pills, and an Isuzu Trooper.
    • Re: 4610 and Lookout Springs Camp (#)
    • 5/30/07; 8:20:51 AM ¦ by Robert Koscik

    • It's good to hear about the designated ATV zones.  Hopefully the understaffed district office will be able to handle all the idjuts out there!  I did notice the reforestation attempt.  Unfortunately many seedlings were knocked over, run over by ATVs...

      "Some of my recent trash finds have been a rice cooker, a water heater, birth control pills, and an Isuzu Trooper."

      That's quite a collection!  You should be able to make a sex-crazed robot outa all that stuff.

      • Re: 4610 and Lookout Springs Camp (#)
      • 5/30/07; 8:47:33 AM ¦ by Rob Williams
      • For whatever reason (probably that it is closer in than other roads) I've found that the 4610 road seems to be the garbage dump for most of the district.  When I was up there a month or more ago, there was actually an old BOAT that someone had dumped!   I can't imagine what gets into people's heads to do stuff like that.....For the most part, the only place I've seen trash in other places has been at camps that people have setup, and it is usually limited to the fire pit.  I can deal with that a lot better than dumping stuff all over the place.

        I wonder how the birth control pills got there?
        • Re: 4610 and Lookout Springs Camp (#)
        • 5/30/07; 10:51:41 PM ¦ by Tom Kloster
        • Thanks for picking that crap up, Rob. I've done the same many times on Wildcat Mountain -- including half-used boxes of ammo and skeet and plenty of beer cartons and cans at the old quarry, clearly marked as a no-shooting zone. This seems to be another redneck haven in Clackamas County. If you happen to run into this again, and it looks like household dumping, consider contacting Metro. They have an investigative unit specifically dedicated to prosecuting illegal dumpers, and are surprisingly able to nail offenders by sifting through the debris. The only way these people learn to be responsible is through a hefty fine, apparently. But it does work!

          I'm much less optimistic about the USFS ORV plan. I don't see them as a legitimate forest user, given the damage they cause, and how they disturb other users. They need to simply be banned on public lands. Given the blatant lawlessness within this sport already, I have little faith in the notion that giving them a "sanctioned" area to destroy will somehow persuade them to focus their destruction there. The open houses on the plan are being held in Sandy in Hood River, so are somewhat guaranteed to have a heavy turnout of ORV advocates. Sorry for the downer message, but this is a pretty sad development for me.

          -Tom
          • Re: 4610 and Lookout Springs Camp (#)
          • 5/31/07; 8:33:43 AM ¦ by Robert Koscik

          • Nobody wants to get off their fat ass these days and WALK anywhere, geesh..

            It's difficult when something popular but destructive comes along, especially in these days of "natural disconnect"....Yer right tho, banning em' will just fuel the flames.

            I'm not sure what the solution is to tell you the truth.  I think we as a culture are just starting to appreciate the woods.  Hopefully there's still time to get things together before the dominoes fall.

            • Re: 4610 and Lookout Springs Camp (#)
            • 5/31/07; 7:55:45 PM ¦ by Tom Kloster
            • Well, the good news is that forests recover pretty quickly from the damage, provided it isn't ongoing. My own solution (if I were king for a day!) would be to follow the lead that cities are taking with skateboarders, and simply build some ORV parks - perhaps in a few abandoned gravel quarries around the state. That strategy has worked wonders with skateboarders, so who knows, maybe the ORVers would flock there, too? In fact, I think there was briefly a "park" for ORVs at the base of Broughten Bluff in the Gorge, but it seems to have been retired.

              Robert, your last point hits the nail on the head: it's our embarrassment of riches that tends to make us complacent about protecting/caring for what's left. Oddly enough, the population growth in the PNW seems to be the ironic solution to the awareness problem, since it creates "scarcity" that never existed before -- traffic jams at the Gorge trailheads, for example. So I'm very optimistic that the appreciation will outpace the destruction/neglect... soon!

              BTW, I want to repeat my kudos for hauling out all of that crap - you really stepped up to the plate in doing that, Robert! Well done!

              Tom
              • Re: 4610 and Lookout Springs Camp (#)
              • 6/1/07; 9:21:00 AM ¦ by Robert Koscik

              • Thanks Tom...we haul out many bags of trash year round from camp or hike spots, just seems like the right thing to do.  I even have a shelf in my backyard with "historic" trash I find, old beer cans, strange rusty bits. 

                It's also important to infuse a sense of respect/love to these abused but still ancient and glorious places.  I dunno but it seems like the forest appreciates the effort and is breathing better after we leave.

                I think a lot of these destructive folks are pseudo-bad-boys who enjoy causing drunken damage.  Fine have fun but please do it somewhere else other than an ancient ecosystem, OK!??!?!

                Scarcity, that's the new concept these days, and not a very good one....true we are running out of wild lands, fresh air and water etc. due to global overpopulation and horrible historic conservation practices (or lack of).  But at least in certain miraculous pockets, many miles of undisturbed paradise await.  Of course they lie off the beaten path like everything else truly special, so it takes the perserverance to find em' and enjoy.  I guess that's a good thing....Can you imagine a world without adventure!?  I can't.

                • Re: 4610 and Lookout Springs Camp (#)
                • 6/1/07; 9:59:34 PM ¦ by Tom Kloster
                • Well said, Robert. As the pendulum swings, and the logging road network begins to fade away, it strikes me that we've been through one of these swings before: I've been making bushwhack trips into the Bridal Veil Creek canyon over the past year to (re)explore a couple of (un)known waterfalls. The entire canyon was developed with a logging railroad, elaborate flume and most every stick of timber cut in the first wave of logging at the turn of the 20th century. Yet a century of resting, rusting and growing has pretty much erased the traces of this earlier period.

                  So it's comforting to know that in a few decades, people will be (re)discovering wild places that we consider tired and abused today, perhaps not realizing just how rough we were in our treatment of the land.

                  -Tom