Kingsley Wahtum Trail to Rainy Lake Hike

Overview

The Kingsley Wahtum Trail, also known as the Rainy Kingsley Trail or simply the Irrigation Trail, runs along a buried irrigation pipeline for much of its length and then, above Gate Creek, turns up a slope to come out near Rainy Lake on Waucoma Ridge. The trail represents the beginning of what some hope to be a mountain biking/hiking trail network on the south slopes of the ridge. The level contour which carries the pipeline was once the Oak Grove Ditch, which siphoned water from Gate Creek and transported it to Ditch Creek to fulfill agricultural needs in the Hood River Valley. Nowadays, the pipeline helps to fill the Kingsley Reservoirs whose dam walls, in 2018-19, are being raised 11 feet to increase water capacity. This is all part of a system managed by Hood River County’s Farmer’s Irrigation District (FID). Rainy Lake is one of a trio of small lakes, the others being North Lake and Black Lake, whose levels were raised by low dam walls at the beginning of the 20th century to build log ponds. Flumes from each of these lakes carried logs downhill to the Stanley-Smith Lumber Mill at Greenpoint, now Kingsley, in the vicinity of the current reservoirs. The mill processed rough-cut timber, which was then sent on lengthier flumes to planing mills at Belmont and Ruthton. A short section of the trail runs to the 620 spur road across the road from the trailhead. There's a tall periscope-like vent for the irrigation pipeline that runs under the route. Otherwise, walk from the trailhead on the level in a secondary Douglas-fir forest with a lush understory of thimbleberry, snowberry, Pacific dogwood, and snow brush. The vegetation is growing in on what was once a wide vehicle track that ran along the buried pipeline. Pass an access route out to FR 2820 and then a seep overgrown with Sitka alder. A tall blue vent duct with a conical cover protrudes from the aqueduct below (You can hear the water running). Enter a more open area with younger western white pine, lodgepole pine, and Douglas-fir. Then pass along a brushy c

Trail Stats

Photos

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