Trail Advocates

Key Stats for the Cripple Creek Trail - 703

About

A good year-round opportunity for fun.  Easy  access only about a mile off the pavement. There is usually year round access to  the trailhead.  As the trail leads to the high country you  will encounter snow at some point during the Winter and early Spring. 

This is a great way to access the high country by  foot rather than miles and miles of gravel road driving.  The  trail also clears of snow weeks before the 4635 road.

According to C.W. Elliot, civil engineer of Portland, Cripple Creek was named for a surveyor who cut his foot with an ax in the vicinity in 1897¹

Three Lynx has an interesting story on how it was named. Old maps show the creek called Three Links, and there is a legend in eastern Clackamas County to the effect that this name was the result of loss, by a surveyor, of three links out of a surveying chain. Ernest P. Rands and William C. Elliott of Portland, for many years civil engineers in Oregon, said there was not truth in the three links story. They were in the neighborhood of the stream at the time it was named. They are authority for the statement that one of the Austin family, early settlers nearby, named the stream Three Lynx creek because he saw three bobcats on its banks.¹

Connects with several other trails once on top: Cache Meadow Trail 702, Grouse Point Trail 517, and indirectly Rimrock Trail 704.

¹Oregon Geographic Names, McArthur, Lewis.

Directions

West Trailhead:Travel Hwy 224 thru Estacada. Continue on Highway 224 approximately 23 miles to Pipeline Road (signs will say Three Lynx). Turn left and proceed on this road for 1.8 miles. The trailhead will be on the left at the top of the hill. If you drive downhill at all or past the big pipeline you have gone too far. There is no sign – the sign at the trailhead was destroyed in the recent fires.

East Trailhead:Travel Hwy 224 thru Estacada to Ripplebrook. Just past the Ripplebrook store, turn left onto Forest Road 4631. Travel approximately 2.5 miles to Forest Road 4630. Turn right on Road 4630 and travel approximately 0.6 miles to Forest Road 4635. Turn left on Road 4635 and proceed travel approximately 8.6 miles to Forest Road 4635-140. Turn right on Road 140 and proceed approximately 1.2 miles to the trailhead on the right. There may be a sign here. Note: The trail crosses the 4635 road approximately 7.5 miles up the road. This is another access point.

Trip Reports

Photo	Date	Report Summary	Trail
📷	Aug 10, 2018	Recent maintenance Hiked the Cripple Creek trail from Three Lynx to Serene lake yesterday. Not sure...	Cripple Creek #703
	Feb 10, 2016	Trail is in good shape Trail in good shape – 12 logs down up until the 4635 road crossing. Most were ...	Cripple Creek #703