Anatomy of Hog Creek, Part 2

(Click any of the thumbnail images for a larger view.)

Today we trace West Branch Hog Creek (hereafter WBHC). Who would have thought its source was just a few hundred meters south of the source for the main branch? Today’s ride started about the same, but I turned into the next housing development south: See Open Street Map and Google Maps. As you can see, it’s just a rain capture at the side of someone’s yard. It drops into the culvert cover and disappears to reemerge on the south edge of the housing area in someone else’s back yard.

It’s a dismal view with dumped junk, but this is where it hits SE 59th coming from the north side. I was able to run on down do another housing development that runs south off SE 59th along the creek, but there was no way to take a picture without trespassing. Most of it forms the west edge at the back of the house lots. While I was able to get back there at one point on a stub street, the light was horrible at that time of day. However, I note the steep valley sides have already begun at this point, and it’s less than a mile from the source.

This was the best of a bad series of shots that I won’t post. Much of it looked about like this, running through heavy forested hollows and diving deep under the roadway in culverts. This is where it comes in from the north at the north side service road on I-240, connected to the old SE 74th coming east off Post Road. I rode back up the steep climb to Post Road and caught glimpses of that majestic hill and valley stuff (MH&VS) but nothing that the camera could capture. Crossing over I-240 and running down the service road in the south side offered an even worse view, because the foliage made it almost impossible to see even the concrete facing of the culvert.

There is a stretch here where WBHC enters a flat swampy area and you really can’t trace the course of it because it varies from year to year. The last episode of heavy rains left a just barely visible trace that is hard to see in this shot. The soil was disturbed by a heavy tractor driving through the damp muck. I was standing on SE 84th west of Westminster Road. There isn’t a year-round flow at this point, but several low spots hold stagnant water.

WBHC wanders through a bit more swamp on the other side of Westminster Road and dips under SE 89th not far east of there. You can see on the asphalt scrape marks from heavy equipment shoring up the outflow side after it nearly washed away. The boulders packed against the side are called “rip-rap”. From there the creek wanders back and forth over SE 89th repeatedly, dodging the ends of high ridges. I rode over one of those ridges to come down on another crossing some distance before Anderson Road.

Coming around the corner on Anderson Road, this is a view SW back upstream (image left), where the creek is marked by shrub-sized willows just visible over the roadside foliage to your left. The opposite view eastward is somewhat better (image right). On the side is a tributary, while WBHC runs through the trees on the right side of the picture.

I climbed back up to SE 89th, then climbed even harder up that street past that stupid dog I had to chase back through his bent gate a couple of weeks ago. Today he stayed hidden somewhere in his yard. There are several grand vistas viewing WBHC Valley on the north side, but the price of admission is two brutal razorback ridges. So brutal, in fact, that my bike broke again. That is, during the climb the stuff that miraculously fixed itself previously is all unfixed now. (God works in mysterious ways.) I managed to finish the ride, but it was rough. I didn’t have far to go.

Coming down off the second hard climb on SE 89th, we come back down to Hiwasee and that infamous washout that has been repaired. At this point the water is actually running because it picks up some trickles between Anderson and Hiwasee Roads. Again, it wanders over a wide flat area, crossing under SE 89th one more time east of there.

Unfortunately, it’s hidden by foliage again. I wanted to show this cut through the sandstone bedrock underlying the sharp ridges here. Even the hardest climbs still have this kind of cut at the peak. In the far background is SE 89th coming down off the second high ridge I crossed coming down to Hiwasee. This is looking back west after I passed through seeking one last shot of the creek.

This was it (right). We are looking south from SE 89th right about Henney Road. The street is closed just a short way beyond this, but the dirt path runs up over the ridge I captured in one of the final shots from chasing the main branch. So in the back of this image, hidden among the willows and cottonwoods, and nearly at the base of the distant tree-covered ridge is our last view of the valley.

It was time to ride my crippled bike home.