790 minutes and 52.94 seconds, or 11 hours and 21 minutes. Started at an access point to the Gorge Trail (Trail 400) 1.2 miles from Multnomah Falls. This meets up with the paved section of the Larch Mt. Trail at Switchback 2 (out of 11) in 0.9 miles, first climbing from 200 to 400 feet, and then descending back to 250 feet.

The Franklin Ridge Trail starts at the Larch Mt. Trail at an elevation of 1,700 feet, 3.3 miles from the Multnomah Falls parking lot. Then it climbs to its summit at 2,700 feet in another couple miles. The trail is through beautiful old growth, although the trees are seldom exceptionally large.

It took me 6 1/2, more or less ecstatic hours to get to the summit and 5 hours to get back to the car. The part descending Franklin Ridge was delightful. It was a smooth, dirt trail with no dust due to all the recent spring rain, all back through the beautiful Franklin Ridge old growth I delighted in photographing on the way up. I managed to descend the 1,000 feet, 2 mile long Franklin Ridge Trail in only one hour. I used to be able to do this in half the time. But at (almost) 72 years old with short legs on my 5'3" frame, this isn't too shabby, if you don't mind my saying so.

However, it still was a 1,000 foot descent in one hour! My legs now felt tired and I took a 15 minute rest at the T-junction of the Franklin Ridge Trail with the Larch Mountain Trail. At this point, the fun in my hike was over. As soon as I hit the first rocky, steep section of the Larch Mountain Trail, my legs were feeling wobbly and the trails were frequently steep and rocky and I had to very carefully pick my way down the trails, which is why it took me 5 hours going back, even though most of it was downhill and I had put away my camera for good at the Franklin Ridge summit. I needed every ounce of strength, balance, and attention that I had going back down, and the only element of this trilogy that wasn't 90% depleted by then was my attention, which remained riveted to every puzzle facing me, and slowed down my progressing tremendously. But I lived to tell about it, and hope to do more in the future.

The difficult descent is in stark contrast to the first three hours of the hike. This was up very steep sections of loose, jagged rocks from 3 to 8" in longest length. (Imagine that later I had to come DOWN all this.) Going uphill (for the most part) these first hours I hardly noticed the exertion or the difficulty of negotiating my way through these unpredictable trails. My balance was good and steady and my footing assured and a bouncing camera at the hip was not too disruptive to use of the trekking poles.

All my photos were taken going to my destination. The sun was very obliging. It really didn't come out until I was done taking pictures. Thus, the lighting (and hence the color balance) in the Multnomah Creek photos I took today are far superior to those I took on my previous outing here, and I judge them to be thereby much more beautiful.

I could not take a tripod because I had to take trekking poles to avoid missteps, due to treacherous, loose-rocky trails. So my 178 variable-ISO photos were all hand-held, unable to use a tripod, the price of caution. 112 photos of the 178 taken made the cut. While planning for this hike, I figured I'd need trekking poles on it and until today, with me, trekking poles and photography had always been incompatible. For today however, I'd thought I'd found a way to fasten with Velcro the camera body next to my hip so it wouldn't jump all over the place. It was only partially successful, still jumping all over the place although not with as large an amplitude. Also, once I started on the Franklin Ridge Trail, the Velcro kept separating and I had to sling my shoulder harness around my left arm as well as my right arm. This was so clumsy I decided just to put the camera away on the way back.

The decision to take my trekking poles on today's hike made life much more predictable for me now. I learne