Newton Creek – Take two, Feb 4th.

So nothing happened between the previous attempt to Newton Creek and this one other than me being sick and some other stuff. Feeling better and with a wonderful forecast, I decided to give it a second try. This time I was a lot more specific on the dangers and difficulties of this trip trying to avoid having people that didn’t know well what they were getting into. Everything started well and we marched on a beautiful sunny winter day towards Newton Creek. We were so energetic that in no time we reached the bridge, crossed it and continue all inline, all together. Then we started climbing towards Gnarl Ridge which, as expected was a bit grueling but doable. Finding the route was easy enough to the point that we got directly to a fork we needed to take. On the ridge we enjoyed both, views of Mt Hood right in front of us and Mt Jefferson to the south and a nice lunch at a very sunny spot. By then I was very confident we were going to make the loop and erase the sour taste of the previous time. As with the previous intersection, we found the second one spot on that indicated the trail that traverses down the slope back to Newton Creek. We took this trail and soon after things went south. I do recall hearing comments like “this is not the way” and “this is too steep”. The comment I don’t remember hearing is “let’s go back”. So after a couple of minutes of me finding a descend route I turned around and to my surprise, I was by myself, no group, nadie. Instead of retracing my steps to go back trying to find everyone, I decided to stay put and admire the canyon views from where I was standing. In the end, I had the map and all the details. After several minutes people started appearing when they finally noticed that I was not with them even though I was leading this event. After a bit of discussion, I realized that even though no one was telling me anything, I had two or three people that were not feeling very safe or strong to traverse the steep slope. After a bit of deliberation (mainly with myself) I had to call it and turn around to go back the way we came. This made the return safer and easier as we just retraced our own steps back to the parking lot although it added a bit of distance as we were already pasty the mid way point. I still want to do this loop so maybe there will be a third attempt later, but for now, I’m putting this to rest, still undone.