Easyish Hike to Steelhead Falls in Crooked River Ranch

Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study Area - Steelhead Falls Trailhead

Today, we went to Steelhead Falls in Crooked River Ranch. The book we used and the trailhead both say that it's a half mile to the falls, but it seemed like more and MapMyHike thought it was a little longer as well. Halfway there, we realized that I didn't have hiking shoes on. I was wearing my Stegmann clogs. You should really check them out. They are awesome shoes, but they are not shoes to go hiking in! We decided to keep going and see if I could handle it. The book said there was a steep half mile. I decided to use my hiking poles and was pretty happy for that decision. 

How to get there

On HWY 97 north of Terrebonne, turn left onto Lower Bridge Rd for Crooked River Ranch. You'll stay on this road for about 2 miles. At which point, you'll turn right onto 43rd. After almost another 2 miles, go left on Chinook Rd. After a mile turn left onto Badger Rd. About a mile and a have after that, turn right onto Quail Rd. Then a mile later turn left onto River Rd. It will turn to gravel. You'll pass a couple of headstones on the right and then you'll hit the parking lot. 

 The trail starts off right at the parking lot. It's pretty flat for a short period. It's not a very wide path, and it's like loose gravel.

After a little bit, the trail starts to descend. There are bits that are pretty steep. I was thankful for my poles because I slid several times! Without my poles, I probably would have landed on my butt. 

There were parts of the trail that were pretty narrow and we had to pull off when people came through. There were also some spots that were pretty side. A few spots had big rocks in the bath. 

The trail was along the river the whole way. I love walks along the river. Even if there isn't a waterfall to get to or a scenic destination, a walk along a river is just amazing. Listening to the water is wonderful. The view along a river is constantly changing. 

We were starting to think that we had gone the wrong way because we felt like we had gone more than half a mile, but we decided to keep going and were glad that we did. I love this water. It's not really tall, but there's just so much going on. You've got the fish ladders on the side and then you've got the main waterfall in the middle. Even in the middle there are like three different sections to it. It's hard to see in the picture but between the big part in the middle and the small part to the right is a small waterfall. It looks like water coming out of a pipe. It's pretty interesting to see because you've got all of this rushing water to the left and then this little trickle coming out to the right. 

The color of the water was pretty awesome. You can't really see it in the pictures, but it looked amazing in person. 

Overall Thoughts

This trip was well worth the hike. The trip to the falls is doable even if you're overweight and out of shape. If you have any type of injuries that make inclines difficult though, you might want to skip it. If you're overweight and out of shape, just take is slow. Go at your own pace. This is definitely worth the effort to get to. I was pretty shocked that we only stopped two or three times getting out. A year ago, the trip getting out would have taken us a lot longer. It's such a short hike that the steep spots aren't so bad. 

Restrooms

I think it's important to know if there are restrooms when you're going on a hike! This hike had restrooms at the trailhead. I didn't use them, but I'm assuming they were just the normal vault type toilets that they have at most trailheads. 

MapMyHike

I only have the MapMyHike screen shot for this one. I forgot to have Runtastic end the workout so it shows like 5 hours and 23,000 calories burned and a lot of miles covered. Oopsy. I couldn't get Walkmeter to start at the trailhead and hubby was getting antsy. Fortunately, MapMyHike actually saved the hike! I'm not including a screen shot for BodyMedia for the calories burned because according to the app, I got a whopping 3 minutes of total activity today. I walked a mile and half according to MapMyHike and BodyMedia thinks I was sitting on the couch eating BonBons. We walked pretty slowly though because of my shoes and the loose footing. Looks like we did about 200 feet of elevation change on this hike according to the map here. 

Easy Hike to Tamolitch Pool on the McKenzie Pass

Where we went and why

We had planned on a hike to Tam MacArthur Rim today, but we woke up late and we decided that we would go to Tamolitch Pool instead. It was shorter and had less elevation. It was a nice cool day and we got it done before the humidity really got bad.

The picture is not upside down. This is a reflection in the pool. 

How to get there

It's near milepost 11 on the McKenzie Pass in Oregon. Turn when you see the sign on the road. Follow the road over the bridge and then turn right. Park on the right and head up the road to the trail head marker. (Edited to correct which pass it was on. I had Williamette listed before. I need to learn my geography better.)

The Hike

This will be a short post since I already wrote this once, but something went wonky when I put the pictures in and I had to delete it. The hike had a lot of ups and downs, but it was always pretty gentle and it never lasted for a long time. We walked along the river for the entire hike, but we couldn't always see the river. We could hear it though. After about 2 miles and two hundred feet of elevation, we got to the pool. The place was gorgeous! 

The trail had some rocks in roots along it. It was also quite busy. If you go, you should go early in the morning or it might be hard to park. There are no bathrooms here. We both agreed that this was our new favorite hike. The hike book that we found this in showed a picture of a waterfall here, but there wasn't one the day we went. We were there in August. 

The Video

BodyMedia Screen Shot

Woot Woot! It shows I burned over 1400 calories on the hike! I even got 9 minutes of vigorous activity.

Runtastic Screen Shot

This is my Runtastic Map. It ended 22 minutes early. My phone lost GPS. One of these days, I'll get something that works properly!

MapMyHike Screen Shot

This shows that I went 5.5 miles. Runtastic shows 4 and the book said 4. It's all so confusing. 

BackCountry Navigator Screen Shot

This one also shows 5.5 miles! Grrrrr. 

Easy Hike at Little Three Creeks Lake in Sisters, Oregon

How to get there

Take Elm Street in Downtown Sisters and head south. After at least 14 miles, it turns to a dirt road. Keep going and after a few miles, you'll come to the Driftwood Campground on the right. Park in there. If you get to Three Creeks Lake, you went to far. Just turn around and take your first left. The dirt road gets a bit narrow. It's also pretty bumpy, but we did it with a VW Jetta pretty easily. If you drive around 40-45 on the washboard stuff, you don't bounce as much. The road climbs up pretty high. The lake was at 6500 feet! 

The Hike

We found the hike in Hiking Oregon's Central Cascades. We picked it because it was under 200 feet in elevation, it was close to home and it was just 2.2 miles. The hike starts off going uphill right away from the parking lot. I hate going uphill first. This went uphill on this rocky, root covered step type thing. It didn't give me the warm fuzzies about the hike. We trudged on though. It didn't go up for long before it went down again. Then it went up a little bit and down again. It leveled out again. This trail gets some heavy use by horses and there was horse poop in numerous places. The trail was wide in some places, but narrow in others. It also had a couple river crossings. They were pretty simple. There were rocks or tree limbs to make it easier.

For some reason, we walked really slowly for the first mile. It took about 45 minutes to get to the lake. We did stop to take pictures periodically, but we were just walking slow. I'm not sure why though. There were a lot of people running on the trail and we pulled over to let them pass whenever we saw them so I'm sure that added a little bit to it. 

A short bit into the hike, you come to a fork. The way the sign was stapled to the tree, it looked like we were to go left, but there wasn't a trail to the left. We went straight which turned out to be the correct way. 

We finally made it to the lake! It was really pretty. We ran into a couple there and we started talking. The book didn't mention anything about going around the lake, but the people there said that it did go all the way around the lake. They also said that there were two ways to get back. You can go all the way around the lake and cross the river to get back onto the trail we went in on or you can take a different path to get to the other trailhead in the campground. They said that trail was shorter, but steeper. We decided to go all the way around the lake.

The path gets a bit narrow and difficult to follow at times, but it's hard to get lost when you're walking around a lake. The lake was pretty cool. The water was perfectly clear! The bottom was a bit mucky looking, but the water was just so clear! There were so many tadpoles in the lake! At one point while going around the lake, the trail continues around to the right, but according to the people we ran into, it deadends, so you switch back to the left. There were parts that were mucky on the other side of the lake.

It was pretty easy to follow the path on the other wise, but then we came to a fork and we weren't sure which way to go. The markings on this side were non-existent. We continued around to the left and then went through the marshy part. We ended up hooking back up with the trail that we had used to get there. It was about a mile around the lake. 

We walked really quickly on the way out. I didn't take many pictures on the way out. We don't normally take many pictures on the way out. We go super slow getting there and then just race back to the car. There was a porta potty in the parking lost. There wasn't a lot of parking in the parking lot, but there were plenty of places to park along the road. 

Overall Thoughts

We really enjoyed the hike once we got to the lake. If we hadn't gone around the lake, I probably would have been disappointed in the hike. Before the lake, the scenery was a bit blah. There were some interesting trees, but overall, the walk around the lake made the hike.

BodyMedia Screen Shot

Here is the BodyMedia Screen Shot for the hike. I actually got some vigorous activity on this hike! On the way back, we walked really fast even on the rough parts. I was pretty proud of myself for that. I usually go super slow. I felt like a mountain goat! 

BackCountry Navigator Screen Shot

The app said that I had a 21 day free trial. I'm pretty sure it's been more than 21 days. It still works though. Since we stopped without pausing the apps, my average speeds are wonky. I need to get better at pausing things. Oh well. The 5.6 MPH for the max speed is definitely wrong. I still don't understand how this app works for the max speed. The altitude gain is a bit more than the book said, but the book didn't talk about going around the lake. 

Runtastic Screen Shot

This is a new app that I'm trying. I was going to compare it to MapMyHike and Runkeeper, but I couldn't get Runkeeper to open when we got to the hike. Runtastic is already my favorite trail tracking app since it opens and it saved without needing the Internet. It has a half mile less than BackCountry Navigator though. I really need to just buy an actual GPS unit that tracks this stuff. Sometimes I think I should have gotten the Vivofit instead of my Polar Heart Rate Monitor since it does GPS tracking while tracking activity, but I just think that if my BodyMedia cost $100, a GPS unit costs at least $100 and a heart rate monitor is at least $60, how can a device that only costs about $160 do all three tasks effectively? A bit more about my love of Runtastic........it was able to pull the map up during the entire hike. BackCountry Navigator requires map downloads. It tracked my hike, but it didn't show me a map of where I was. MapMyHike rarely shows me the actual map of where I'm at. I can see the trail of where I've been, but I can't see the map. We actually used Runtastic today to make our decision about trying to find the other path back to the parking lot. It was nice actually being able to see the lakes on the screen. 

There is no way the calorie burn on this is accurate. I'm also thinking I did something funky and shut the app off where that blue dot is between miles 2 and three. 

MapMyHike Screen Shot

Here is my MapMyHike screen shot. Check out that insane calorie burn! It's not accurate, but whatever. I think my insane weight really messes with the math. Oh well. 

Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor

Here are my stats from my Polar FT7 heart rate monitor. This has 5 minutes less than the Runtastic app because I couldn't figure out how to stop the Runtastic app. Hubby suggested that I try once I got into the car. I believe the calorie burn on this a lot more than on the Runtastic app. I'm not sure if my weight really messes up those things up. I just know that MapMyHike is the same way. It comes up with crazy crazy high numbers! I spent an hour and 40 minutes in the fat burning zone! Woot woot! Then we went to Takoda's and had a peanut butter chocolate pie. Oopsy. At least I burned the pie off. 

House Rock Campground Hike on Tombstone Pass in the Central Oregon Cascade

Where we went and why

We went to the House Rock Campground to do a hike to a waterfall and to see House Rock. The book listed it as an easy 2 mile hike with 200 feet of elevation gain. We were bringing one of the kids back home and this hike was on the way, so we stopped in. It was in the early afternoon when we got there. It was in the mid 70s on a fairly humid day. It was clear, but just so humid! 

How to get there

The hike is on Hwy 20 about 26 miles west of Sweet Home. There are signs on the road warning you that the campground is coming. Shortly after you turn off of Hwy 20, you'll see a sign for the campground to the right. Don't take that one. You'll go over a couple of one lane bridges. After the second one, you'll see a Santiam Wagon Trail on the left. Keep going and you'll see another sign. Park on the right. You'll see a green gate. That's where the hike starts.

The Hike

The hike starts off going downhill pretty gently. That means, you'll be going uphill to get out! Oh fun! The path is pretty wide at the start. The ground was a little squishy. The path narrowed and we had a couple spots where we needed to cross over some water crossing the path. Most of the spots were pretty small and they had some rocks in them that we were able to use as stepping stones. After a bit, we came to a small path to the right. We followed it thinking that it was the path to the waterfall, but it wasn't. 

A little bit later, we saw the sign indicating that the falls was .2 miles to the right. The path was steep in spots and pretty muddy in spots. There was a fallen tree that made it a bit difficult to get to the waterfall, but we made it there. We didn't have to go over the tree though. The waterfall was pretty cool. It wasn't a huge waterfall, but it did have a lot of water coming over it. At the base of the waterfall, there was a small bit of rapids and then it was pretty calm and clear. The color of the water was pretty cool. 

Once we got out fill of the waterfall, we turned around and headed back to the main trail. We turned right and headed to House Rock. The path was pretty muddy in a lot of spots and we had more water crossings. The path went down and stayed along the river. Eventually, we got to House Rock. It's this rather large rock overhang. It wasn't very impressive though. 

The path then looped around and met up with the main trail. We then made our trek back to the car. Since we had come downhill on the hike, we had to go uphill to get back to the car! 

We didn't use our hiking poles at this hike because it was only 2 miles with 200 feet elevation and it was tagged as easy. I regretted that decision! The poles make such a huge difference on the uphills. They would have also come in handy while we were doing the muddy spots and the spots where the water was running across the path. We did the hike after it had been raining for a few days, so I wouldn't recommend that. 

Overall Comments on the Hike

The book labeled this as easy. For anyone who is physically fit, this probably would be an easy hike. However, the path was narrow and muddy in some places and narrow and steep in others. Without my poles and at my current fitness level, this hike was not easy. I really regretted the decision to not bring them. My glutes were getting sore during this hike! I can still feel them tingling now. 

The Video

If you liked the pictures, check out my House Rock Campground YouTube Video.

 

BodyMedia Screen Shot

I didn't do a workout tab from the walk since it's such a battery drain, but here is the calories per minute chart. I thought I would get some vigorous on the way out since it was going downhill at a gentle grade, but it didn't happen. We had to stop periodically. You can see all of those little dips there. 

MapMyHike Screen Shot

The map isn't accurate. We definitely came out on the same path that we went in on. When I started the recording of the hike, MapMyHike did explain that there was a bad GPS signal, but it didn't seem to mess things up in the past. This one was pretty messed up though. So the straight line on here, didn't really happen. 

BackCountry Navigator Screen Shot

This was my BackCountry Navigator screen shot. According to this, the hike was 2.9 miles, but MapMyHike said that it was just over 2. However, MapMyHike had obvious issues since it didn't show us on the same path going in and out. I actually believe this that it was 2.9 miles simply because it took us an hour and a half to complete the hike and according to this our average speed was 1.9 MPH. Which is pretty consistent with what we normally do on a hike. I know we stopped a bit and we went slow on some parts, but we also went pretty fast on other parts. I think I need to get a GPS unit because these apps are obnoxious.