Started hiking at 09:15 AM, really late for me. Hiking time: 7 hours, 54 minutes, 30 seconds. Temperature was about 36° and even with my thick winter gloves, my fingers got uncomfortably cold. But after a couple hours, it warmed up into the 40's and eventually I was able to replace my clumsy (for operating the camera controls) thick gloves with thinner driving gloves. It was actually breezy in spots, which didn't help keep me warm.

Starting elevation was 900 feet. Although the high point hardly got above 1,200 feet, it was up and down steep hills all the way, sometimes, treacherously steep, and narrow next to cliffs falling for hundreds of feet down to the river.

Soon after the trailhead, the trail enters into a recent and photographically fascinating burn that occurred after the previous time I'd been here. After about 3.5 miles, it enters into a wonderful old growth basin with many huge and picturesque Western Red Cedars and Douglas Firs. At about the half-way point, a side trail leads up Pup Creek to Pup Creek Falls, in a spectacular setting. However, I missed the cutoff on the way in, crossed boisterous Pup Creek (without even realizing it was Pup Creek, since there was no sign), which was deep enough in its shallowest spot to give me a hot foot, but it didn't bother me since my three layers of sox wicked the water away from my skin. Past Pup Creek, the trail quickly travels through a clear cut through power lines. Here the trail is almost level and I hiked about 20 minutes through this dull section before running into a couple hikers who told me there was no creek behind them, so I figured something was wrong and I turned around. On the way back, just after recrossing Pup Creek, I found the side trail and walked up it and saw the falls.

Timings: 2 hours 57 minutes to old growth basin, 24 minutes and 49 seconds photographing the sights in the basin and eating lunch, 1 hour and 30 minutes to turnaround point -- turned around through frustration in not finding the Pup Creek side trail-- 6 minutes and 9 seconds for a second food break, and 2 hours and 56 minutes to return, including the side trip to Pup Creek Falls. Picked up "Bill," just after getting back on the Clackamas River Trail after viewing Pup Creek Falls, and hiked all the way back with him. He was an engineer and we had lots of things in common we talked about. We had photography in common and the love of reading literature. It's nice meeting someone on the trail and hiking with him/her. Total hiking time: 7 hours and 55 minutes.

Thinking a trail that only climbs 300 feet in 5 miles would be easy, I took my tripod and mountain axe. I hadn't been here is 10 of 15 years and forgot that there were very few level spots along the trail: it was almost all steeply up and down, and so I got quite a workout. Took 137 photographs, of which xx made the cut. It was sunny the whole way and I was in the woods, and so almost all the photos had a horrible blue cast, which I eliminated with Lightroom.