Oregon Hikers

Hi everyone! I'm looking for a 2-3 easy backpacking route for the last week in March. Last year a friend and I hiked the Lower Deschutes Canyon Trail and enjoyed the warmth and sun. Are there any other hiking recommended areas like this, without snow at this time of year? Any ideas are appreciated! Thank you!

Click on "field guide" then "winter and spring backpacks".

I'm always looking for same.

Metolius River is nice, although it's mostly an old road. Hmmm..., that's like the Deschutes

Rogue River - a bit further away

The beach on the Olympic Peninsula - further away, plus the weather there is iffy and you have to time the tides.

It is a rather unusual precipitation year so far. It is hard to say if you will be able to get up into the elevations people were at just a couple days ago. I would expect that some point the precipitation levels return to somewhat normal and spring is usually pretty wet with snow accumulations being very low at times. Jerry gave you some ideas. I would say in general terms, the gorge, the coast and the east side of the Cascades are pretty sure bets. Higher will be hard to plan for until we see what happens the next few weeks. Not to snow on the parade, but here's hoping we see a very wet spring as we are headed for a disaster of a fire season this summer if we don't start seeing some serious snow pack. Good start today

Thank you, great info!

One issue which I haven't seen commented on much for early-season backpacking is that snowless in early season means low altitude, and in most places this means thick forest. Which means no sun, whether or not it is out. The Deschutes is a nice exception to this. And meadows can be really boggy. So it's hard to get much sun when snow prevents you camping closer to the alpine early in the season.