No trails except game trails

If we had made it down the correct ridge we would have see this with more water. This photo of Martin testing a route was taken on the 2013 trip.

Devil's Staircase Waterfall

October 14, 2017

Dan Bolme and I left Portland at 4am on Saturday, October 14 and drove for 4 hours to where we could begin our hike to Devil's Staircase Waterfall in the Oregon Coast range just north of Scottsberg. At first we were confused as to whether or not we were on the correct road because it now extended along the ridge at least a mile more than when I had been there in 2013. This was good news since the extension made the trailless walk shorter, replacing some blowdown areas with a road. 

We started hiking by 8:45 and would not be back at the car for over 8 more hours. Since I had hiked this twice before I did not return for the map, which I had left in the car. This was a big mistake. By noon we had walked down to a creek that fed Wassen Creek, so we knew we were upstream from the falls, having descended too soon. Using hand pruners we clipped a path along the creek downstream until we were forced to ascend and get out of the stickers (salmonberry?). 

I was aware of my lack of energy as I followed Dan up to the ridge which led to the route that we should have descended. It was obvious that I would not be able to go back down to the waterfall and return to the car before dark. We continued up to the point where we began the mistake, saw a marker ribbon and breathed a sigh of relief, not lost, just worn out.

Dan was doing fine, but I was not able to always proceed without plopping down in the brush through which we traveled. My legs were cramping despite drinking almost all our water and sometimes Dan had to lift be back to my feet. After several of those heave-hos we finally got out to the old logging road with a mile to go on smooth footing. I was walking on my own now. Previously in the woods on the uphill, Dan often braced me against falling backwards so he got an extra workout.

In a little over 8 hours we had gone 4.7 miles with 1,398' of elevation gain. We took turns driving and got back to Portland by around nine. Oh, one more thing, we did not see Sasquatch.