Little North Santiam River 14 December 2013

Katrina and I left Shopko parking lot at 9a and arrived at a slightly foggy trailhead an hour later.  Wow!  That was a nice short drive!  The road was a little icy but no traffic, so we could go slowly.  One car was at the Elkhorn trailhead but we think they were doing a shuttle as we never saw them and the car was gone on our return.  There was fog initially but it cleared up and the sun shown obliquely on the opposite shore including Henline Mountain.  It was a beautiful day, crisp 30's, snow-free trail (few icy spots) and glorious frozen waterfalls and blue green clear pools.  The rocks were dicey but we made it out to a few to see the pools.  It took us 4 hours to make it to three pools which is only a 3.3 mile hike.  What was up with that?  I think we stopped and took so many side-trips down to the water that it consumed our time.  We lunched at three pools overlook, checked out the path to get down (too icy on the rocks), then headed back (2 hr).  We were back to the car by 3 and to Shopko at 4p!  Sunset is around 4:30p so I was home by then.

starting out

Little North Santiam

looked like tree lettuce

our first side trip

climbing on the rocks to get this photo was a little risky

getting to the high point

there were 5 bridges, one rock crossing and one log crossing of streams

three pools/lunch view

interesting rocks at three pools

different lighting at high point on the way back

moss covered deciduous trees - spooky