Yamhill County Highpoint Trip Report
Trask Mountain
Date: May 10, 2007
Author: Chris Roundtree
Using Jones' 1997 directions, we dodged speeding log trucks and piles of
freshly-cut trees and made our way past the extensive clear-cuts along the
Trask Toll Road with little effort. Just after milepost 7 (logging company mileage
markers attached to trees), we correctly turned left at a fork marked "Toll Road",
even though our DeLorme atlas labels it "Trask Mountain Road".
At an intersection roughly 3 miles further, at the Yamhill/Tillamook county line,
Toll Road drops away to the right. We continued ahead uphill, on the road
which Helman refers to as "quite steep, often surprisingly so"; it does indeed
steepen but it’s a maintained gravel road, as it is currently being used to
access active logging operations.
At the top of the steep section, we reached what others referred to as "the saddle".
Here, Helman referred to "several paths heading in different directions".
Instead, we encountered a large clear-cut (apparently new)
immediately to the right (west) and a broad, obvious road heading somewhat
steeply up to the left (also apparently new?).
We snuck past the logging crew's
bulldozers and drove slowly up the chunky road (our Ford Escape sufficed;
passenger cars are probably too risky here). This new road heads south, over
and around the west side of Trask Mountain, and down to a junction at another
saddle just south of the summit dome. Near the crest of this new section of road,
we located the truncated remnants of the old road leading down from the summit,
hidden behind a pile of strategically-placed trees, above a 15-foot-high
road-cut embankment. We parked at a wide spot in the new road just north of its
crest and hiked the short distance to the remnants of the summit's old lookout.