Cache Meadows that is.
Padme, Alexis, Phil, Erin, Malana, and Eva at the "trail X" trailhead
Similar and quite close to Cottonwood (as the crow flies!) lie another series of glacial meadows. The area is now protected as part of the vast Roaring River Wilderness, a wild and tangled land bisected by deep eroded canyons and rivers that roar.
Of course the trip in is down a very long and very narrow gravel road built in the 1960s to "get the cut out". This twisting road climbs over 3000'! It seems to take forever to get there. The roadside brush hasn't been cleared in many years, making head on collisions a distinct possibility.
Many of the old trails survive in spite of this.
If it were 1922, one would climb the mountains on one of several well graded trails originating from the Oak Grove Fork Clackamas Ranger Station, continuing through meadows and many directions beyond. In 2011, most of these historic routes still make the drastic climb up the long steep flanks of the Clackamas Canyon and beyond.
One last chance to bask in the fading summer sun.
Once a glacier, and then a lake.
New sign and designation for an ancient place. What did the Indians call it?
Other than the name, not much has changed in the past few thousand years.
haze from ever present dry season fires
Cache
(Named for a forgotten Forest Service cache of supplies from God-knows-when.)
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