So, Eagle Eye Don appears to have found some historical evidence of the old 511 trail (South Fork).  He was looking at one of the old lookout photos from Frazier Mountain, and saw this in the distance: It looks pretty clear the cut in the middle of the photo is a trail.  If so, that trail is quite a bit higher up the hill than what the maps shows.  Here is what the map shows: So, this area might warrant some more explorations higher up the hillside rather than following the river.  I think Paul had done some exploring up this route, and found some trail at the beginning, but quickly lost it if I recall correctly.   P.S. - I used the "new" method of dragging photos into the editor - it works SLICK!  Although I'm using firefox - not sure how well IE would handle it.    

We know where it departs 512. It looks like not to drop off that head wall and head towards the rock field.   That might show on satellite. Don2

So, Brian, you seem to have good luck with some satellite imagery (looking for all those waterfalls), do you see any evidence of a trail through those rock slides?  I took a look on google and did not see anything evident to me.  It looked like the photos were taken late in the day (the shadows looked pretty long to me).  

I'll take a look with a couple different sources and see what I can find. Google's imagery up the Clackamas is very shadowy, almost unusable.

When you get done, can you share your sources?  I'd like to find a good source of aerial images.  Kind of like looking at different maps, sometimes different aerial views can give you additional info.

I looked over the satelite views and couldn't find any sign of a trail. The rock slope is very easy to find.    My sources are pretty simple. On a PC, the best aerial imagery up the Clackamas is on Bing. Under the 'birds eye' tab, click on aerial. You can use Birds eye to find terrain profile, then go back to aerial for a very clear view.    The best I've found is using Apple Maps on hybrid. Using an iPhone 4, 4s, or 5, turn the brightness all the way up and then go to hybrid on the maps. Click it on 3D and map surf away. The apple maps used like I mention is how I've been finding some good waterfalls lately.      

I went to the Bing maps and looked around a bit - although the images are a bit better than the google ones, they still have long shadows and so there is a lot of detail that is hidden in those shadows.  I did not see anything that looked like old tread either, but the images are still rather indistinct.  I wish my brother still lived out here - he could fly me over the area for a closer look....I guess it will require an on site reconnaissance next summer.  It would just be nice to have a smaller area to search.