19-Apr-2005 -- After three successful confluence visits in two days, I decided to try a little harder one on my last day in Oregon, only I had no idea how hard it would actually turn out to be!

I drove up along Clackamas river, and got within 16 miles of the point when I met the first Road Works working. Just a minute later I arrived at a barrier: It turned out the road was closed for days or even weeks while cleaning up loose rock from the location of a slide.

A lady working at the barrier told me that the road would stay closed for several days, so I was about to give up when she added: "There is another road around on the other side of the mountain, if you have a lot of time to spare: You go back down, then north and northwest almost to Mt Hood, before you find a road leading back to the Clackamas river hwy, on the other side of the rock slide!"

Since I had started early in the morning I decided that I did indeed have just enough time to try this, so I turned around and started on the 130 km mountain detour.

Almost two hours later I found Skyline Road and then National Forest road 58 (Nf58), which should finish my detour.

Nf58 was paved, but very soon I had to drive slalom around the remains of trees that had fallen across the road during winter, and then been partially cleared in springtime.

Nf58 stayed OK, if somewhat narrow. I had to drive fast to cross a couple of snowbanks, but then after maybe 15-20 minutes, I got to a much deeper and longer snowbank, located in a bendy uphill area. It was obvious that my rental car had no chance of negotiating this patch, so I had to turn around, drive back to Mt Hood, and start playing tourist instead of getting to the confluenc. :-(

On the other hand, Mt Hood sure is beautiful on a nice spring day like this. :-)

The next day I flew down the coast to San Francisco where I later visited 38°N 122°W in Concord.