Dates: July 6-9, 2018
By: Beth Dayton and Kim Lively of the Salem Area Trail Alliance
The following is a summary of findings from a hiking survey, described in the order the trip was made. A detailed Avenza map document contains waypoints, a track with elevations and distances and multiple photos. The write-up wil make more sense if you follow along on the map.
Green River Horse Camp
Easy to find using directions provided by Trans-Cascadia. Drive time from Cougar to camp was 1 hour 45 minutes. FS roads 99 and 26 have a smooth paved finish but multiple surprise sunken areas that can send you airborn at normal speeds. Gravel access road is in excellent condition. The camp has no potable water, one pit toilet and about 6 camp sites with tables and lots of flat open ground. A 100 yard trail leads to the creek with nice bathing holes and clear water. Use appears light; one party camped there the two days we saw it.
Trail 213: Green River horse camp to TH on FS 2612, 1.1.miles
No logs, light brush. Sandy pumice soil with deep trenches up to 16”. One bridge with severe dry rot but intact. Elevation: Start 2840, end 3170.
Trail 217: TH at FS2612 to saddle on Goat Ridge, 3.7 miles
Elevation start 3170, end 4900, max 5000.
TH has large gravel parking lot. Start of climb is soft pumice soil with gullies to 20” deep, some marginally wide enough for pedals. Relentlessly steep. As pumice ends and loam begins, nice trail bench up to 24”. Traverse of ridge top with great views of St Helens and Adams, sandy to rocky, very steep side hill, in places 80-100% ; minimal brush, one log (12”) about 1 mile from TH at FS 2612.
Trail 217: North side of Goat Mtn Ridge, from saddle to Deadman Lake, 1.6 mi
Start 4900, end 4300 ft. Almost entirely downhill. 14 logs up to 18”,lots of woody debris in trail, good 24” bench. Very brushy, lots of mosquitos. Confusing intersection of user trails at junction 217 and 218 near Deadman Lake. Lake has several nice campsites with easy water access, going clockwise from access trail.
Trail 217 from Deadman Lake to junction with 205, 2.4 miles
We did this as an out and back from the lake. Undulating trail with steep ups and downs on wooded ridge, just a few peek-a-boo views of Mt Adams. Some gullied areas on fall line tread, up to 20” deep, and narrow. 25 logs, largest 10-12”. Intermittent heavy brush, huckleberries mostly; woody debris.
Trail 218 (Tumwater Mtn) from junction with 217 to Junction with 205, 9.4 miles.
From 217 to small pond: Pond is shallow and marshy, likely will dry up by end of summer. 160 logs, some are double or triples. First 40 at south end are small, most could take hand saw, then increasing in size to 24” further north. Tread narrow, about 12”’; in some areas with no understory the trail is not visible at all. Other areas with heavy brush, mostly huckleberry. Lots of woody debris, down limbs, etc. No water. High point on Tumwater ridge: dramatic view of Mt Adams and Mt Rannier from rock outcrop. An amazing photo op in clear weather. We did not see trail 218a to the top of Tumwater, but may have thought it was an abandoned trail.
From pond to 205 junction: Nice even grade, 10-15%, looks like could be a good climbing trail, drops 2400ft in 3.4 miles. Wide bench to 36”. Multiple water crossings, shallow and rocky. One sharp corner with major exposure; miss this turn and die. Total 73 logs, getting larger at lower elevation; brush increasing at lower elevation along creek. Many logs over 24”. Largest is labeled log 62 on Avenza map, less than a mile from 205 junction: at least 50”, lying on steep side hill, second 30” log parallel and touching it. Tracks show hikers going uphill around it; pretty scary to climb over with a lot of exposure and slippery surface. If it can’t be cut out, at least cut steps to cross safely.
Beautiful series of small waterfalls, mossy creek beds, big trees, cedar and Doug Fir.
Trail 205 from Jxn with 218 to Jxn with 217: 4.1 miles
Cleared by Nick and Alex, no remaining logs. Gains 2000ft in first 3.5 miles. Beautiful creek with small waterfalls, mossy; big trees. Wide bench and tread, over 36” in some places. Great downhill run, incredible PNW photo ops. Minimal brush. Several old bridges in flatter area before final ascent; dry rot but intact. We saw pink flagging all the way up—from Nick??
217 trail from Jxn with 205 to Jxn with 213a: less than one mile
We hiked the Vanson Peak loop clockwise, with a camp at Vanson Lake, which is very deep, clear, cold, very nice large camp at east side near inlet stream; small beach for swimming access. This section has nice 36” bench, even 10-15% grade, would be nice to climb or descend. No logs, minimal brush, some debris. Junction with 213a ( Vanson Ridge Trail) is obvious, but no sign. There is a mystery trail headed south from here. The old trail, seen only on CowlitzRD map, going from this trail to meet Green River Trail further west, is not visible from this end. This section of 217 is mysteriously very wide, up to 48” tread and then kind of peters out near clear cut.
Trail spur from 217/217a to meet road 2600 on Weyerhauser, about 0.75 miles
Confusing user trails at edge of clear cut. The right route is marked with candy cane flagging. It runs east-west, just north of the monument boundary, in a very overgrown clear cut. Dense brush, corridor is nearly invisible, but some tread remains, No large logs, but encroached by saplings, etc over 10 feet tall in some places. We left intermittent candy cane flags to origin at 2600 road. The TH there has an old hitching post and a parking area; the road is perfect quality wide gravel. The sign for the trail is just inside the tree line and bleached white, marked with ribbon as before. A suggestion: the forest just south of the clear cut has almost no understory or down logs. A parallel trail could be created just by raking debris out of the way and would save a crew an entire day of hacking through brush.
Trail 217a from spur (see above) to Jxn 205 and 217. About a mile
The lower (west) end is hard to find, but does have a sign (we missed it first time by). Very steep fall line trail, no bench in some places, lots of debris, 10 logs to 14”. At top of ridge a moderately steep (10-15%) spur trail (not seen on maps) dead ends at the old lookout site at the top of Vanson Peak. Amazing view of both Rannier and Adams. Clear flat area from old lookout is about 100x60 feet, probably large enough to have a race start. From the top of Vanson to the 205 intersection nice bench, 14-20” tread, no logs.
213a, Vanson Ridge Trail, Jxn with 217a to 213 (Green R. Trail) about 3.5 miles
There is no Vanson meadow, but intermittent heavy brush and also long areas with no understory at all (Hemlock effect?). Trail at north end has no sign but by GPS track is obviously the 213a on the map. Consistent 12-18% grade, wide bench and tread, 24-30”. Total 20 logs, up to 30” but nothing too complicated. Lots of woody debris. Multiple shallow water crossings. Halfway down, exposed corner on rock outcrop with probably 100’ free fall cliff. Over-shooting this corner will result in a retrieval and not a rescue. Great view up the U-shaped Green River Valley from here.
Trail 213, Green River Trail, heading west from 213a junction.
Good signs at intersection. Absolutely amazing deep old growth, Jurassic Park style. Huge cedar and Doug fir, maybe 500 years old. Some old cuts made for the trail are incredible, near 60” diameter. Can’t oversell this—makes you want to go slow and gape. We followed for 1.9 miles but ran out of time before reaching 2500 road. Tread is about 12”, with areas of extreme overgrowth with salmon berry, etc. but nothing needing a chain saw. Multiple small rocky water crossings, undulating gentle flow. We found 2 very old trails headed north, straight uphill. One of these must be the second trail seen only on the Cowlitz RD map All that is visible are very old log cuts, no tread or bench at all. Sites are marked on Avenza map with pins and I’m confident I could find them again. One or both may parallel 213a, heading to Vanson Peak loop. We saw one set of boot prints on the main trail, also lots of bear sign (everywhere on the loop, actually). No horse sign at all.
Trail 213 from Jxn with 213a back to Green River Horse Camp, 7.2 miles
First 3 miles before Monument boundary are same as before—pristine old growth. Immediately east of 213a junction there is a very old rotted bridge collapsed by a 30” tree across the middle. I doubt horses can cross this, and very dense brush on all sides. Total about 20 trees to monument boundary, up to 38”, intermittent dense brush . 2 campsites along creek in old growth area.
At boundary, sudden change to thicket of white fir in old clear cut, nice tread 18”, but old growth is gone. A few more logs 20” or less. Trail is easy to follow to old official trail head sign (see pin on map); looks like old logging landing, but no current road acces (looks like FS 036 on Natnl Geo map but we did not see a road bed). Then trail completely disappears in meadow of scotch broom, rabbit brush, etc for about ¼ mile. We hung candy cane ribbon to obvious trail inside tree line at east side. Current official TH is at Jxn with FS637 off FS2612. (Seen best on Natn’l Geo map). We continued east from here planning to walk to our car at the horse camp, but about 0.5 miles West of the camp there is a major washout, probably 200 yards of trail gone into the creek and no evident bypass. Extreme dense second growth with old down logs up to 40” buried in the mess. Saw the south end of a north-heading black bear crashing through the thicket. We bushwhacked on a compass heading to meet FS2612, took about 45 minutes to go maybe 400 yards.
Current access to Green River Trail from Horse Camp: take 2612 west to the TH on 637, about 2 miles from camp on a good gravel road. Another option would be to find and revive the 036 spur which might be easier than creating a trail across the meadow. I don’t think the last little section of trail west of the horse camp is worth rebuilding away from the creek. The woods are crappy second growth and it would be a real struggle.
We saw lots of scat from bear and possibly fox or coyote, also elk tracks but no elk.
Skeeters are really bad at Deadman Lake and anywhere there is a lot of brush; I forgot my head net but would have used it. The first day we passed three equestrians headed up Goat Ridge on a day trip and two pairs or trios of hikers. For the next 3 days we saw only two backpackers (actually met them twice, doing a similar loop in the opposite direction starting at the Goat Creek TH). That’s our story and we’re sticking to it!
