2023-08-19 45 -123
| Sat 19 Aug 2023 in 45,-123: 45.9243995, -123.8580770 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox |
Location
In the woods north of Klootchy Creek County Park.
Participants
Expedition
Disappointed but undaunted after 2023-08-19 45 -122, I struck west from St Helens towards Vernonia, and promptly got caught in a poorly signed system of detours that kept me driving in pointless loops for a while without ever really making clear that the road to Vernonia wasn't available.
Only mildly daunted, I dipped south to Scappoose, took the road from there to Vernonia, went south all the way to Manning like a noob instead of taking the Timber cutoff, and finally headed northwest (through Timber, eventually) on US 26 towards Klootchy Creek County Park, a few miles inland from the Coast. Some years ago, I got the car briefly stuck by backing off of the shoulder of a bridge ramp at this park on the way to 2011-07-24 45 -123. I was more careful this time.
The area is apparently popular with mountain biker types, and as I was unloading the bike a guy who was packing up his own bike announced "Hey, I don't want to be dramatic, but I just encountered a bear back there!" That was thought-provoking of course, but as his sighting had been a few miles away, the only real information it contained is that bears live in the forest, and I already knew that, so I continued.
The ride took me down a series of three clear but increasingly low-fi forest roads, on which I overshot the hashpoint by quite a ways and then circled back to it from the north, both to get as close as I could on roads and to avoid too steep a climb. At the end, it looked like I might be able to walk right up to it in a grassy meadow -- but nope, the final twenty feet or so were down a forested cliff. I scrambled down, scrambled back up, made it back to the park without any unfortunate ursine encounters, and set my sights on 2023-08-19 44 -123.
Photos
This park used to feature a very large tree, but it perished in a storm some years ago
The second forest road branches off...
The third forest road
The hashpoint is just past the end of this meadow... and down a cliff
View north from the hashpoint
Me at the hashpoint, oblivious of forest debris
Voila
