TRAILHEAD NW Rocky Point Road, 1.3 miles off St. Helens Road
DISTANCE 3.6 miles round trip
DURATION Two hours
ELEVATION A total change of 225 feet, with a low point of 575 feet and a high point of 800 feet
CONDITIONS This hike mostly follows a 2-mile stretch of scenic logging roads through a remote forest in various stages of maturation.
FROM DOWNTOWN This hike begins 18.2 miles from West Burnside and Interstate 405. Drive north on Highway 30 (also called St. Helens Road) past Linnton, Burlington, and the Cornelius Pass intersection. About 16 miles from downtown Portland, you will pass a truck weighing station on the right side of the highway. Immediately beyond it look for a sign indicating the junction with NW Rocky Point Road. Turn left and proceed up Rocky Point Road for 1.3 miles until you come to the first gate on the right. Park at the side of the road.
The Jones Creek Hike offers lovely forested vistas and a variety of woodlands supporting a diverse range of Northwest plants, animals, and insects. The Jones Creek and Joy Creek basins are the northernmost limit of Multnomah County, and the slopes overlook the town of Scappoose in Columbia County. The area close to Rocky Point Road is used by mountain bikers who have constructed numerous side trails that crisscross the area.
A graveled fire lane climbs gently uphill from the gate (elevation 575 feet), heading north. Follow it about 50 feet to the first intersection.
The right-hand spur leads to a power-line maintenance trail that extends northward for several miles. However, the lower portions of this easement are private property, and access is forbidden.
If you do decide to take a brief detour to this ridgetop power-line maintenance track, you’ll emerge from the trees at the top of the slope into a clearing under the power lines. In springtime this linear clearing is awash with foxglove (Digitalis purpurea), an imported European weed recognizable by its telltale bell-shaped flowers and well known as the source of the heart drug digitalis. Its evocative common name is probably derived from the Anglo-Saxon for “fox’s music,” a reference to two characteristics of this plant: it resembles a cluster of bells, and it grows in the scarified soil much preferred by foxes for building dens.
To the north is the burgeoning town of Scappoose. The name of this town originated from the Chinook for “gravelly plain.” It was a favorite meeting place of the Columbia River “Canoe” Indians, including the Kiersinno, Clatsop, Multnomah, and Tualatin tribes, who gathered there to participate in feasts, trading, gaming, and horse races. The streams were said to be overflowing with
The Jones Creek Hike affords a nice 2-mile exploration into the extreme northern edge of Multnomah County.
salmon and the forests full of berries and wild game. At least some of this remains true, as you can witness on these remote hikes.
To avoid trespassing, however, this hike does not use the power-line easement. Instead it continues to follow the forestry road in a northwesterly direction.
As you ascend this road you will cross a small pass that straddles a knoll before proceeding northward. A small swamp lies on the far side of this hillock and attracts much wildlife.
It is in shady coniferous forests such as this that you will find one of our daintiest treasures, the fairy slipper (Calypso bulbosa), hidden deep beneath shrubs and other vegetation. This delicate, violet orchid first appears in the fall and disappears by early summer. It should go without saying, of course, but please do not pick this flower: the corm has shallow roots, and it is virtually impossible not to destroy its lifelines.
As with other members of the orchid family, the fairy slipper seed embryo develops only if penetrated, nourished, and hormonally stimulated by mycorrhizal fungi. Orchids produce as many as three or four million seeds in a single pod, but they lack a built-in food supply and have an abysmal germination rate. If it weren’t for the essential intervention of the fungi, we’d have no orchids at all.
Just before waypoint 4, a spur on the right-hand side of the road leads generally in the direction of the power-line road.
At this point the track turns to the left. Keep an eye open for hawks and eagles as you walk down this forest-lined road. I once surprised an eagle perched directly over the road. In order to launch into flight he had to swoop off his perch and fly directly at me before gaining enough speed and loft to climb up and out of the trees. I don’t know who was more surprised, the eagle or me!
You will spot many bike trails crisscrossing the woods on either side of the road in this portion of the forest. There is a virtual maze of bike tracks here, complete with bridges, ramps, jumps, and obstacles of every sort. You may encounter extreme cyclists during the dry season.
Follow the main track up the hillside, passing various spurs along the way. The main track is clearly evident as it wends its way through progressively older stands of trees, finally passing through medium- to older-growth timber near its highest point, around 800 feet.
This segment of the trail (elevation 700 feet) begins to descend toward the Joy Creek basin. As you make the descent, note the forest floor on either side of the trail, which is dark and rich in nutrients. Deep in the duff beneath the thick conifers you are likely to find some of the most unusual plants in the Northwest. One good example is Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora), a short, whitestemmed plant with waxy white petals and no trace of green. Also called corpse plant or ghost plant, this small, pale plant belongs to an intriguing group known as the epiparasites.
What’s so unusual about these flowers is the complex symbiotic network upon which they depend. Under these dark forest floors a vast underground web of mycorrhizal fungi is bringing about a vital exchange between the mushrooms and the trees. The fungi supply the trees with water, minerals, and nitrogen from the substrate, and the trees contribute carbohydrates. Epiparasites such as Indian pipe have developed a special role in this transaction, having evolved into a sort of free rider. As these mycorrhizal associations evolved, Indian pipe shed its now unnecessary organs, like leaves and roots, and came to subsist solely through the generosity of the leaf canopy above and the fungi below. (And you thought there was no free lunch in nature.)
The Crabapple and Jones Creek watersheds contain a number of beaver ponds that enhance the wildlife habitat.
At the furthest end of this forestry road the trail splits, with two cul-de-sacs running along two parallel ridgelines. The eastern (right-hand) trail also connects to a bridle trail that descends to the lower portion of the power-line easement, but this is private land and access is prohibited. One notable feature of this eastern cul-de-sac track is an impressive anthill that is at least as old as the forest that surrounds it. It is populated by alpine ants (Formica neorufibarbis).
