Hemlock Creek

Sometimes, the forest is the hike and the hike is the forest. What I mean by that when you hike, there's usually a destination in mind, a place to go to, a particular something to see, as the reason for your being out on the trail in the first place. But then again, sometimes there is no raison d'etre for the day's venture, it's just about the being of it. Hemlock Creek was such a hike, because once I entered a forest sublime, it became all about the journey and not the destination.

Pink rhododendron flowered next to Lake in the Woods

This tree-centric hike began at smallish Lake in the Woods, ringed not only by campers trying to escape the heat cooking the Umpqua Valley, but also by flowering rhododendron bushes gracing both lake and woods. Not wanting to disturb sleeping campers, I grabbed a use trail that skirted around the camping spots along the semi-stagnant lake. This led to some momentary confusion when I egressed onto a gravel road and had to spend a few minutes searching for the resumption of the trail.  

A log spans Hemlock Creek and tempts the adventurous

From the aforementioned gravel road, the trail entered a thick forest and headed uphill at a moderate grade. But who cares about uphill hiking when the forest was so out-of-this-world beautiful? The shade was as refreshing and as cool as a waterfall's mist. Sunlight filtered through trees, limbs, branches, and leaves, winding up on the trail as dappled light and shade. Life was good here and I considered staying in this place for the remainder of my days, it was so pleasant. 

Elegant cat's ear with that fuzzy feeling

A diverse collection of wildflowers mostly shared the forest in a harmonious rainbow coalition of specie and color. However, Columbia windflower and elegant cat's ear each practiced a form of floral apartheid, staking their claim on a particular patch of ground, making sure that not one pistil or stamen belonging to the lower castes of flower rabble dared cross over their territory. They couldn't stop me from taking photographs, though.

Lower Hemlock Falls wasn't easy to get to

Hemlock Creek was seldom seen from its namesake trail but did provide a couple of notable waterfalls to gawk at. The first cascade was Lower Hemlock Falls, which was kind of hard to see, you have to bushwhack a bit to get a decent photo thereof. The second waterfall, encountered on a side creek, is Clover Falls and is a lot harder to see, seeing how it's effectively screened from view by trees and tree parts. In fact, I didn't even notice the cascade when I hiked past but caught it when I returned in the opposite direction. Such are my keen powers of observation.

Trail into the forest darkness

After the two waterfalls, the route temporarily departed from Hemlock Creek and inscribed what seemed like an endless amount of switchbacks but were probably only four. My GPS said I was about to cross another forest road but the back and forth through the dense vegetation made the road crossing seem a lot farther away. 

Stout bridges crossed and re-crossed Hemlock Creek

After crossing the forest road, the trail did provide some quality Hemlock Creek time and miles. The path crossed and re-crossed the pristine and clear-flowing creek passing underneath the stout footbridges. Initially, the bridges were sturdy and sound except for one span showing its age by sagging in the middle, just like some hikers do. The final creek crossing had no bridge at all and required an easy ankle-deep wade.

The forest was a pleasure to hike through

Once Hemlock Creek was forded, the route commenced a more rigorous climb through the forest in yet another series of switchbacks that seemingly went on forever but probably only numbered four. Orange and salmon-colored clumps of coral fungus pushed their way into existence along the trail, emerging from the dark depths of the earth below. Flowers bloomed in the forest undergrowth and always, there was that delightfully mottled light keeping things cooler than they would otherwise have been. 

The meadows at the Yellowjacket Loop junction

After a mile of slogging ever on upward, the trail grade eased up and the forest thinned out, providing views of intermittent meadows with willow thickets in the middle, where Hemlock Creek flowed somewhere within the small trees, hidden away from the prying eyes of passing hikers. And just like that, the forest ended and the trail spit me out into some large meadows near Hemlock Lake. 

A wasp enjoyed the shade, just like me

These meadows are part of the Yellowjacket Loop, a great hike in its own right if you like meadows (and who doesn't?), wildflowers, and yellowjackets. I briefly entertained a notion of hiking the full Yellowjacket Loop and turning this moderate eight mile hike into an exhausting fourteener. But it was a hot afternoon by now, giving me the perfect excuse to turn around and head back to Lake of the Woods. But you know I would have done the longer loop except for the heat, and quit your sniggering! 

Fern frozen in mid-furl

It was all downhill back to the opaque green waters of Lake of the Woods, through the same beautifully shaded forest I had so enjoyed when hiking up. But, the easy downhill walking allowed me to better appreciate the shade, rampant greenery, and tall trees just that much more. When the hike ended at the trailhead kiosk, I turned around and said out loud "Thanks, forest!" but not too loudly. No need to get the nearby campers wondering about the lone sweaty dude talking to trees.

Peace like a forest

For more photos of this hike, please visit the Flickr album.

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Little River Waterfalls

I had choices. I could have gone hiking on Friday but procrastination won out. Hiking was put off for one more day, making Saturday the day to engage in my favorite activity. Naturally, Friday had been a perfect day for hiking: sunny, cloudless, and comfortably warm. And of course, Saturday turned out to be windy, rainy, and cold. That's why in the O'Neill household, I'm not allowed to make any decisions related to anything other than hiking.

Wolf Creek Falls dwarfs all

No complaints though, the theme for the day's hikes was all about waterfalls, even if that meant water falling from the sky on occasion. There are four short waterfall hikes up Little River Road, and I don't hike them much at all because they tend to be on the short side. However, by doing all the cascades in a single day, reasonable trail mileage can be accrued, justifying the effort and trouble of driving to three different trailheads in a single day.

Quality forest time near Yakso Falls

The first hike turned out to be a bust though. The road to Grotto Falls was heavily covered with trees felled by winter weather. Somebody had cut a car pathway out of all the timber litter but there wasn't a lot of room between the sawed-off logs and my wide and reasonably pristine Jeep. As the debris kept increasing with frequency and intensity, I eventually turned around and figured I'd see what condition the road to Lake of the Woods was in. In hindsight, I could have just parked and walked down the road to Grotto Falls but that just didn't occur to me at the time. Oh, well.

Lake of the Woods, as a breezy storm rolled in

As it turned out, Little River Road, once it turned to gravel, had also experienced fallen trees but nowhere near the volume and ferocity encountered on the road to Grotto Falls. Plus, the road was wide enough for two cars so the trees never encroached my precious vehicle on the drive to Lake of the Woods, the trail nexus for two of the waterfall hikes on my prospective itinerary. From the small lake in and of the woods, trails lead to Yakso and Hemlock Falls, and just because and for no other reason, Yakso Falls was elected to be the first hike of this overcast and dark day.

Drab flower in spring, juicy berry in late summer

These trails see a lot of use, and accordingly the path was wide and well maintained. The woodland approach climbed gently uphill as it rounded a forested ridge. It was a veritable jungle what with dense vegetation consisting of vine maple and pretty much everything else flanking the trail. In late summer, the hike to the falls must be berry nice, based on the amount of huckleberry flowers blooming on the tall bushes.

The dividing line between geology and forest

Eventually, Little River was spotted flowing well below the trail and after the path hugged a formidable mossed-over cliff, Yakso Falls hove into view. This time of year is the best time to see waterfalls as all the rivers and creeks are rain swollen and put on quite the show when it comes to cascades, and Yakso Falls was no exception.

Yakso Falls

As I had mentioned, the day was pretty dark with impending inclement weather coming in, the gloominess of the day enhancing the white water of the falls glowing nearly luminescent in its rocky bowl. Much photography ensued and a fair amount of time was spent just taking in the splendor of the falls, both on a photographic and metaphysical spiritual basis.

Trail signs in the age of coronavirus

After the 0.6 mile hike back to the trailhead, I crossed the road, hopped over the Lake of the Woods Campground gate (closed due to the pandemic) and walked past the small lake to the Hemlock Falls trailhead. Where Yakso Falls was on Little River, Hemlock Falls does its thing on Hemlock Creek. And while the hike to Yakso Falls had been fairly mild in gradient, the trail to Hemlock Falls dropped rapidly down to Hemlock Creek in alarming fashion, with the dreaded opposite effect coming back out.

Hemlock Falls tumbles down its cliff

Hemlock Falls was predictably spectacular and like Yakso, much photography and recharging of soul batteries ensued. I think there might be more to Hemlock Falls than what can be seen from the splash basin, for at the top, it seemed like the noisy cascade was already a pre-existing condtion before becoming the visible spectrum of Hemlock Falls. The creek has cut a deep canyon here and when trees fall, they apparently tumble all the way down to the creek, for the cascade's splash basin was littered with a plethora of trees long since mossed over.

Some of that rushing water on Hemlock Creek

After the steep hike back to Lake of the Woods, where a certain lone hiker said "ugh!" a lot as he trudged uphill, it was another drive on Little River Road to Wolf Creek Trailhead. Wolf Creek Falls are extremely popular with the casual hiking crowd and since this was the first week of partially relaxing the pandemic stay at home order, there were no expectations of encountering solitude on this hike. And sure enough, expectations were borne out by a full parking lot at the trailhead.

Wolf Creek Trail was lined with candy flower

This hike began in spectacular fashion on an arched footbridge spanning Little River just upstream of Wolf Creek. Once the trail entered the lush forest thriving at the bottom of Wolf Creek's canyon defile, it was apparent this would be more nature walk and photo shoot than actual hike. The greenery was profuse and dense, and the wide path was lined with white Columbia windflower and diminutive candy flower.

Columbia windflower was abundant

While windflower and candy flower were a constant throughout the hike, other bloomers also flowered up the joint, notable species thereof being sea blush, starflower, thimbleberry, inside-out flower, and Hooker's fairy bell. Sword ferns were a thing too, with their "elephant trunks" not yet being fully rolled out into the more familiar fern fronds.

Wolf Creek flows past a rocky bench

Wolf Creek was also a constant on the left side of the trail, although it wasn't always easy to see the creek through the vegetation and forest. But when the creek was visible, the water was notably silty and opaque as the stream burbled and babbled at the bottom of its green and mossy creek bed.

The upper Wolf Creek Falls

After a short climb near the end of the trail, the lower half of magnificent Wolf Creek Falls became partially visible through the trees. The falls are a two-stepper and both parts of the falls are stunning in their watery beauty. However, the lower falls are not visible from the viewpoint but can be enjoyed from the trail leading up to the viewpoint.

Lower Wolf Creek Falls was visible from the trail

Since this hike was all about the enjoyment of water, it stood to reason that of course, it would start to rain as I enjoyed the roaring cascade. The precipitation wasn't too bad at first, but would increase on the hike out. On the return leg, the wind picked up, the rain fell a bit steadier and the camera was stowed away to aid in getting back to civilized dryness as soon as possible.

The silty waters of Wolf Creek

Despite the wet weather, it felt like a pretty good choice to hike on this wet day instead of the glorious sunny day before. Lest I feel too good about that decision however, the following day dawned sunny and warm. That figures!

Simply elegant starflower

For more pictures of these hikes, please visit the Flickr album.

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Yellowjacket Loop

I've seen the Yellowjacket Trail at its best and its worst. The first time I hiked this moderate loop trail was way back when and the month was November. The winter snow had not yet arrived that year and the trail wound its way through woods and meadows all dried up and browned out in advance of the winter weather. Not particularly impressed with the hike, I remember wondering what the big deal was about the Yellowjacket Loop. One other time, I tried to hike up Hemlock Creek to the Yellowjacket Loop and found myself waist deep in snow and having to turn back before I even reached the loop trail. 

A galaxy of stars, leaf-style

So why hike this trail? Well, after that not-so-much November hike, a friend persuaded me to go there in the spring and oh my, it was as stunning as the November hike was underwhelming. All those brown meadows were green and flowery, bursting with life. Of course, some of that life was in the form of yellow-jackets (a nasty wasp), several of which found their way underneath my shirt, causing a frantic shirt-removing wasp dance in the middle of a boggy meadow, much to the bemusement of my companions. So, now that I know what spring and winter look like at Yellowjacket Glade, what about autumn? 

Fungus, fuzzy enough to pet

The Friends of the Umpqua were originally going to hike up to the summit of Rattlesnake Mountain but a storm dumped a bunch of snow on it so Yellowjacket was enlisted as a lower-elevation Plan B. Things were damp and cool at the Hemlock Lake trailhead, which meant that there would be no wasps and no repeat of my shirt-removing wasp dance. And by damp, I refer to the the vegetation and not the clear blue sky with a relatively ineffectual sun in it. 

Wish goes hiking

So, away we went and immediately Kevin, Wish (Kevin's dog), and I lagged behind. Kevin and I were toting cameras in direct correlation to our bringing up the rear. It was obvious that the theme of this hike would be the fall colors of the vine maples. The trail ambled in shady forest and the maples were sporting autumn finery of yellow and green, just like any good Oregon Ducks fan should.

Leaf with a fly shadow

Basically we were contouring above and around Hemlock Lake and we caught occasional glimpses of the lake as we hiked. After a half mile of relatively level trail, the path crossed Hemlock Lake's inlet creek and turned uphill, shooting up through the forest at a fairly brisk grade. Can't say as the uphill was particularly strenuous, probably because of frequent stops to photograph each and every leaf in the forest, or so it seemed. 

View from an unnamed ridge

After passing by a fetid pond with an equally fetid name of Dead Cow Lake, one more push uphill through a shady forest took us to the top of a broad, mostly forested, nameless ridge. Atop the ridge, the trees thinned out a bit, serving up an expansive view down to the South Umpqua River drainage. Layers and layers of mountains rolled away as far as the eye can see and names were slapped on a few of them: Rabbit Ears, Mount Hershberger, Union Peak, Crater Lake rim, with Mount McLaughlin being the tallest of them all.

Huckleberry gets into the autumn act

Continuing further along the ridge, the path dipped back into the forest again where we got to "re-enjoy" walking uphill, as if a reminder was needed. The meadows were popping up along the trail with a little more regularity, offering views and vistas for the price of a brief off-trail walk. Of course the meadows weren't green any more but they weren't fully browned out either. Vanilla leaf, thimbleberry, and mountain ash were yellowing out in the drying vegetation, turning the meadows into a hybrid color tone somewhere between green and yellow-brown.

Burning bush

But really, the stars of the show were the vine maples. On the northwest facing slopes between Peak 5174 and Flat Rock, the vine maples glowed red and orange with increased exposure to the sun. At times, it looked like molten lava was flowing down the slopes but at second glance, it was just the vine maples doing the autumn thing. In between the fiery meadows and underneath the trees, the maples were colored light yellow because of the shade. With each colorful display, camera shutters clicked with increasing frequency, and hiking paces decreased accordingly.

Forest fire

After a series of steep switchbacks, the trail bottomed out in a large meadow with a boardwalk cutting across it. The meadow was dry, rendering the boardwalk superfluous this time of year, but in the spring the boardwalk is very much needed. And shortly thereafter, the trail closed the loop and this moderate hike came to an end. We'll have to place this October hike in the "good" Yellowjacket Loop bucket.

Autumn hath come

For more pictures of this hike, please visit the Flickr album.