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Wednesday, August 23, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
A circumnavigation of Black Butte — on foot
By Craig F. Eisenbeis
Correspondent
We were trying to decide
where to hike last week and
finally settled on climbing
Black Crater. No sooner had
we made that decision than
the trail was closed due to
the Milli Fire. So, we decided
that it was time to hike into
Four-in-One Cone, which —
for some reason or another —
we keep postponing and still
have never climbed. Within a
couple of hours, however, the
Scott Trail - and pretty much
everything else over there —
had been closed, too.
So, we just decided to do
Black Butte yet again. The
next morning, I showed up
at the Lower Black Butte
Trailhead and parked my
truck. A couple of min-
utes later, my hiking buddy
showed up, leaned out the car
window and said, “Want to
try something different?”
We settled on doing some
exploration on a different part
of Black Butte, and we left
our vehicles at the Metolius
Headwaters parking lot and
headed up the hill. Neither
of us had a clue that it would
be eight hours before we
returned, tired but proud of
what we had done.
Circumnavigation. That’s
a big word; and, by the time
we finished our day, we had
hiked about a mile for every
letter (go ahead, count them).
We each ended up blaming
the other for coming up with
the idea; but, somewhere
along the trail, we made the
decision to just keep going
until we had completely cir-
cled Black Butte.
Our first objective was
simply to link up with the
Metolius-Windigo Trail,
which we did with no dif-
ficulty; and that is when our
eventual plan began to insidi-
ously take shape. Instead of
looping back on the north
side of the butte toward
Camp Sherman, we opted to
head east toward Indian Ford
Campground.
Most of the trail route
around Black Butte is on old
logging roads, and therein
lies a problem. The old roads
all look alike, and signage is
extremely poor and not really
designed for what we decided
to do. Since we had not
planned this particular adven-
ture, I was carrying only a
trail map of Black Butte.
What I really needed was
my gigantic Sisters Ranger
District map from 1986 that
shows every single little dirt
track that was ever carved out
in the last hundred years.
We arrived at the Metolius-
Windigo/Indian Ford Trail
junction and, out of about five
trail/road choices managed to
take the correct one to con-
tinue what would become our
circumnavigation. After our
hike, I reconstructed what the
trip should have been, with
all the best routing choices;
and it came out to about 12.5
miles – definitely less than
our version.
Not surprisingly, our ver-
sion turned out to be more
challenging; and, lack-
ing that big map, we made
some wrong choices. So, as
a reward for our improvisa-
tional hike, we were treated
to some extra mileage when
we made those wrong turns.
Actually, we were doing
okay until, somewhere on
the south side above Black
Butte Ranch, we came to
another five-way intersec-
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some signage there, pointing
vaguely toward Upper and
Lower Butte Trails, but it was
unclear because there were at
least three choices.
We concluded that the
“Upper” Trail must be the
highest one. Right? Well,
actually, no. As we discovered
much later, the correct choice
was really the middle one.
After some steep climbing,
watching the Milli Fire on
Black Crater, and a welcome
lunch break, we encountered
a switchback that never actu-
ally switched back again; and
we were headed east. We had
already been east. We wanted
west.
A post-hike check of the
big map showed that this old
road ended about another
three quarters of a mile up the
butte and to the east, but we
turned around before reach-
ing the end of it. Back at the
switchback, we took off cross
country, traversing northwest
and downhill, figuring that
we would eventually hit the
lower trail – which we did, of
course; but it wasn’t as easy
as that.
The off-trail brush wasn’t
too bad, but I still ended up
with some cuts and scratches.
The tough part was the
extremely steep slope, which
— with a slick pine needle
top layer — made for poor
footing and tough going. We
didn’t make very good time
on this stretch. With a good
cell phone signal on the south
PHOTO BY CRAIG F. EISENBEIS
A circumnavigation of Black Butte can produce some unfamiliar
views, such as this one of the northeast slopes of this Sisters Country
landmark.
side of the butte, we also took
the opportunity to advise our
spouses that we would be on
the trail a lot longer than we
had originally planned.
It was a relief to hit the
actual trail (another old road),
and start to make better time
and finally leave the views
of Black Butte Ranch behind
us. Instead, we now caught
glimpses of Mt. Washington
and Three Fingered Jack
off to the west. With a real
trail surface under our feet,
we felt like we were really
cruising; and we blew right
on by the next trail junction,
even though it was very well
marked with rocks, log bar-
riers, and tape. We thought it
was the junction of a different
trail.
As a result, we logged
yet more unnecessary mile-
age before we hit another
switchback headed uphill and
east, once again realizing that
we were no longer headed in
the desired direction. So, back
we went to the trail junction
we had ignored and jumped
onto that trail.
This was a single-track
trail obviously constructed
to link those two particular
old logging roads. Like our
previous route to connect to
a lower road, this newer trail
traversed downhill and north.
The terrain was similar to our
previous traverse, but being
on a real trail made a world of
difference.
Soon, we were back on
another old logging road and
making good time again.
Eventually, we were certain
that the trail was on one of
the old roads that cross the
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