A few weeks back, Jason sent a rather open suggestion to camping the weekend of March 1st. I had nothing planned and plenty of time to take care of a few small issues on the Jeep so I agreed. Somehow in that time I took care of some other things I'd been thinking about for months, adding a cheap roof rack and mounting the hi-lift jack on the spare tire carrier.
We went about our own lives but managed to put together a plan, meeting at the Gales Creek Shell station on Saturday morning. It was me in my Jeep, Jason in his Kia and Gregg & his son Carsten in Gregg's Subaru. We'd previously discussed a trail in the TSF OHV area that was recently converted from ATV use to all uses, including 4x4s.
We headed up over Wilson River summit on highway 6 and turned off at Jones Creek. We drove up to the trailhead off Jones Creek Road and aired down. Jason noticed that I was missing a lug nut so I grabbed an extra off the spare tire, checked the rest and we were ready.
After squeezing through the very tight filter we climbed up and up. The trail was mostly converted logging road, that hadn't really undergone much conversion. 4x4 was only used for convenience on the steep hillclimbs and soon we were at the top. We pulled out the map to discuss options. We settled on a route up to the Truck Dent trail, which has received some work recently, changing the challenge of the trail. We ran it with ease, spotting Gregg's low-slung (compared to the other rigs) Subaru through a few rocky spots and eventually emerged out of the fog at the other end.
We stopped for lunch and looked at an old road I was curious about and decided on a plan for the rest of the day. We would follow the Coast Range road down to the Wilson River. None of us had driven the road and though I recalled seeing a sign for it along highway 6, I couldn't remember if it was gated or not. We went for it and, despite the GPS leading us down a few dead-end roads we eventually made our way down to the highway. I had to stop and tighten my roof rack as it liked to slide around on my roof occasionally. We crossed the Wilson River and headed up Kansas Creek to Hembre Ridge.
We followed Hembre Ridge east for a while before dropping down to the North Fork Trask near the mouth of Hembre Creek. We then headed to our secret campsite, known as Camp Screwdriver, utilizing a very rare and very secret water crossing. We set up camp as it got dark then proceeded to have the usual amount of fun in camp until we got tired, me being the first. I woke up to a log in front of my tent, my fault for going to bed first.
Sunday morning we all woke up bright and early and while we didn't rush to pack up by any means, we were on our way out by 830am. We wanted to go run at least one Trask OHV trail so we made our way over to Ginsberg Point to run the trail of the same name. Gregg and I had run it a month earlier and it was bone dry. Today was a different story. It was greasy muddy and very wet. There was one hill climb that none of us were able to conquer and another that only one of us (me) was able to get up. Jason nearly got there but ended up having to back all the way down. There was also another side trail I attempted and nearly made it but got stopped at the very top by several inconveniently located rocks. I ended up having to pull cable while Jason and Gregg sat down at the bottom of the trail and laughed at me. *Note: I don't know what was going on at the bottom of the trail, I couldn't see or hear them but I'm assuming they were laughing at me, I would've happily done the same if I'd seen somebody cockily charged up a steep wet rocky hillclimb only to get stuck at the very top.
From there it was a beeline out to get home and get ready for the week ahead, unfortunately we weren't really near a road that lead straight out so we had to drop down to the Trask then go up and over Headquarters Grade and down to the Nestucca below McGuire Reservoir. From there it was out into Yamhill County where we all went our separate ways.
We went about our own lives but managed to put together a plan, meeting at the Gales Creek Shell station on Saturday morning. It was me in my Jeep, Jason in his Kia and Gregg & his son Carsten in Gregg's Subaru. We'd previously discussed a trail in the TSF OHV area that was recently converted from ATV use to all uses, including 4x4s.
We headed up over Wilson River summit on highway 6 and turned off at Jones Creek. We drove up to the trailhead off Jones Creek Road and aired down. Jason noticed that I was missing a lug nut so I grabbed an extra off the spare tire, checked the rest and we were ready.
After squeezing through the very tight filter we climbed up and up. The trail was mostly converted logging road, that hadn't really undergone much conversion. 4x4 was only used for convenience on the steep hillclimbs and soon we were at the top. We pulled out the map to discuss options. We settled on a route up to the Truck Dent trail, which has received some work recently, changing the challenge of the trail. We ran it with ease, spotting Gregg's low-slung (compared to the other rigs) Subaru through a few rocky spots and eventually emerged out of the fog at the other end.
We stopped for lunch and looked at an old road I was curious about and decided on a plan for the rest of the day. We would follow the Coast Range road down to the Wilson River. None of us had driven the road and though I recalled seeing a sign for it along highway 6, I couldn't remember if it was gated or not. We went for it and, despite the GPS leading us down a few dead-end roads we eventually made our way down to the highway. I had to stop and tighten my roof rack as it liked to slide around on my roof occasionally. We crossed the Wilson River and headed up Kansas Creek to Hembre Ridge.
We followed Hembre Ridge east for a while before dropping down to the North Fork Trask near the mouth of Hembre Creek. We then headed to our secret campsite, known as Camp Screwdriver, utilizing a very rare and very secret water crossing. We set up camp as it got dark then proceeded to have the usual amount of fun in camp until we got tired, me being the first. I woke up to a log in front of my tent, my fault for going to bed first.
Sunday morning we all woke up bright and early and while we didn't rush to pack up by any means, we were on our way out by 830am. We wanted to go run at least one Trask OHV trail so we made our way over to Ginsberg Point to run the trail of the same name. Gregg and I had run it a month earlier and it was bone dry. Today was a different story. It was greasy muddy and very wet. There was one hill climb that none of us were able to conquer and another that only one of us (me) was able to get up. Jason nearly got there but ended up having to back all the way down. There was also another side trail I attempted and nearly made it but got stopped at the very top by several inconveniently located rocks. I ended up having to pull cable while Jason and Gregg sat down at the bottom of the trail and laughed at me. *Note: I don't know what was going on at the bottom of the trail, I couldn't see or hear them but I'm assuming they were laughing at me, I would've happily done the same if I'd seen somebody cockily charged up a steep wet rocky hillclimb only to get stuck at the very top.
From there it was a beeline out to get home and get ready for the week ahead, unfortunately we weren't really near a road that lead straight out so we had to drop down to the Trask then go up and over Headquarters Grade and down to the Nestucca below McGuire Reservoir. From there it was out into Yamhill County where we all went our separate ways.
