[1k]

Took some searching and bush bashing but I managed to find the old truck that Harry abandoned.

Harry's Truck

Hoist Engin

I can now understand why I read so many reports of hikers passing through the area and not seeing it. There is just no way to spot it from the trail. In fact, once the trees leaf out, you could be shouting distance away and not find it. This is definitely one place I would not want to visit at the height of bush and bug season.

Disappearing

Was struck by how thick the tangle of plants have become over the years. Below is a photo from 1986 and one from last week.

Webb_Truck 1986

Compare To 1986

In another 20 years the relic may become impossible to find without GPS assistance. Reading old reports for a clue as to the “museum” location, it seemed to me that those who had seen and written about it were being vague concerning directions. Are the whereabouts of this old truck something that should not on a public forum? Anyway, I had fun scouting around and was happy to have found it.

[whitebark]

Interesting stuff...is the "museum" near the creek crossing a mile or so beyond the Balcony?

[Magellan]

Nothing secret about where that stuff is. Just harder to locate than it used to be. Spill it, if you want.

[puzzlr]

A couple of us tried to find it based on Harvey Manning's description last December but had no luck. It would be great if you could zoom in on your flickr map page and drag a picture close to where you found it. I'm going to be doing Web peak sometime this summer and hopefully I'll can see this bit of history along the way.

[trailjunky]

The guy in the 1986 photo looks a lot like JimK.

[JimK]

[1k]

Did up a little map of the approximate location of the "museum". The blue line is the main trail/road. The red line is about the route of what was another road.

Museum

I took the red route down through the overgrowth. The more direct way is to follow the main trail past the balcony junction. At the stream crossing turn right (uphill) keeping the stream on your left. Lots of brush for the first five minutes but eventually it becomes less dense and you can see a fairly obvious grade of the old road. The road turns left as it follows the stream uphill. At the turn there are two 3' tall cairns. Keep going up with the stream on your left and when you get close there are 3 or 4 pieces of orange tape, at various intervals, leading to the site. My altimeter read 3,240'. The description is more reliable than the map since I was trying to draw a line in some tight spaces. Hope this helps others with an interest in history.

[Elvis]

Four of us braved the 'forecasted' morning rain in order to visit Dirty Harry's Museum today (Sat, Apr 14, 2007). Today's group included CHawk, 8Buck & NewD2k. While some drops did fall, it was an insubstantial amount by Cascade Standards. We parked at the TH a short while after 9:00am and began our ascent up the rockiest trail I've seen in a long time. It's plenty wide... but watchout if you have weak ankles. A yellow flag plus a miraculous eTrex GPS reading in the trees enabled us to find the spur trail to DH's Balcony where we initially encountered dense fog. To our surprise, it quickly dissipated to allow for a few snapshots but then it rolled back in before we could get a scenic group shot. After a short break for snacks and photos we continued upward in search of DH's Museum. With some quality beta from 1K and an on-trail inquiry with a couple descending hikers as to it's whereabouts we had no trouble locating the 'museum'. **It seems that the snow shown in 1K's pictures is entirely gone - only one or two small patches remain in that area.** Trail Condition Warning: Upon returning to the established trail (via backtracking) we continued for a ways upward along the trail to where museum creek crosses the road. Near the end of the water activity on this trail there is a hole in the road which had a portion of the creek pouring into it. A test rock-drop into this 18inch diameter size hole indicated that there is a substantial cavity under this section of the road. Of course, that means if you are standing by the hole, dropping rocks into it... you are at risk of triggering or becoming a part of whatever collapse or 'sinkhole' develops. This hole is on the downhill (aka the outside edge) side of the road and is at approx 3,100 elevation. Please be careful. We encountered a total of 9 others on this trail today. Our turnaround point was shortly after the above noted water-hole.

View from Dirty Harry's Balcony

Riff Raff at Dirty Harry's Balcony

Dirty Harry's Rig

fungi

Trailside Stream 2

Trailside Stream1

We were back to the vehicle at about 2:00pm. Ran NewD2k back home for a family event and then CHawk, 8Buck & I decided to explore Cedar Butte (or is that Ceder Butt?)