I got an early start to Coyote Wall today. This was my first trip in the area, but after a good Catherine Creek trip last Sunday, I was hoping for good flowers to complement the geology. This is real quickie report. I'll try to fill it out tomorrow.
I arrived just after sunrise and the entire wall was shaded. Since the typical loop route involves some road hiking at the upper end, I drove to the top looking for the upper trailheads. I couldn't find either one of them. I decided to hike up the top of the wall and hopefully run into someone that could help me with the trailhead for the return trip.
My route started by walking the closed Highway 8 (the precursor to today's Highway 14)
Here's the old cattle chute near the trailhead.
Farther up the road, there were lots of small flowers and some pretty interesting moss.
I followed a bike path up the hill, generally turning left at every junction to stay close to the ridge. Most of the way up the crest there is an old road, that bikers use as a fast track down and a single track near the edge of the cliffs.
There are several obvious attempts to organize the trails and the results are really good. Here's a former route that's been closed with a few rocks.
Some interesting rocks
Coyote Wall
Looks like the car's OK!
The flowers here were really strong. The only downside was a biting wind.
Near the top, there's a marker as a remembrance to a biker that fell from the cliffs.
A couple of the many bikers I saw. They were all very friendly and helpful with directions.
The views from the top of the bikers downhill included Mount Hood and the Gorge toward the west.
Just passed the crest of the hill, the trail disappears into the timber. I noticed a trail heading down the hill to the left here. We'll come back to that later. About 1/10 of a mile beyond the top of the downhill, the trail came to an old, closed road. A passing biker told me that I needed to go left to get to the upper trailhead. I hiked about a mile to the upper trailhead, below a few homes with a great view of Mount Hood. Another group of bikers there tried to help with directions to the upper end of the lower trail, but they also had information about another trail that sounded even more interesting.
I retraced my path about 1/2 mile to the north end of what bikers call the "Crybaby Trail". The first few feet of this are a spooky slide down a really steep stretch of dirt. Then the narrow trail contours across the very edge of the cliffs.
Here are a few views of life on the Crybaby Trail.
The Crybaby Trail turns out to be the trail I saw earlier at the top of the downhill. Just north of the downhill on the Crybaby Trail is another trail, this one called the Wizard Trail. This switchbacks down very steeply to the lower trail, which the bikers call the Coyote Canyon Trail. I didn't get many pictures on the steep section of the Wizard Trail. I think if I'd put my pack down, it would have rolled straight into the canyon.
Here's a very early Balsamroot.
Near the bottom of the hill, the trail snakes around through the boulders at the base of the talus slope. It was here I really began to think about the differences between trails constructed for hikers and those built for bikes. Where a hiker trail would have taken the shortest distance, this trail wound around the rocks, doubling back for no good reason other than another cool rock to ride on. There were several small bridges and one swiveling gadget over a huge downed tree.
The return trip on the Coyote Canyon Trail was mostly through an open oak forest, easily the largest native oak forest I've ever personally hiked through. There were several views of Coyote Wall, now illuminated by the shifting sun and a whole new group of flowers to play with.
All in all, this was a great, if long day.
What do you suppose is around that next bend?