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Nick Eaton Ridge - Jan 1, 2008

Posted by pablo (2008-01-01)

Herman Creek Trail to start of Nick Eaton Ridge and back.

This was supposed to have been a day trip to Green Point Mountain - Ha! In my dreams maybe. Having never been on snow shoes I thought I could fly across the snow and make like 3 miles an hour once on Nick Eaton Ridge - cruising over top downed logs, etc., etc. Well, the snow shoes helped out quite a bit going up the hill but I found myself postholing in deep snow anyway - and this with extra tails on the shoes. So there must be something about the state of the snow that makes for good or bad snow shoeing, I'll keep at it. I'll lower my expectations about distance and start a little earlier in the day.

On the way up the gorge, ran across this waterfall that just couldn't make it to the ground, a bit of a wind in the gorge today.

On Nick Eaton Ridge looking towards Portland.

Wind blowing the top off St Helens.

Table Mountain and my snow shoe track.

Looking up the Herman Creek Drainage. Wooly Horn Ridge and Tomlike Mtn left of center and just to the right, is that Chinidere?

Less than 5 miles, around 2700' vertical. One thing I noticed is this trail is either wrong on the USGS TOPO or was relocated at some time in the past and the USGS TOPO location needs an update.

Re: Nick Eaton Ridge - Jan 1, 2008

Posted by Splintercat (2008-01-01)

I noticed a bunch of cars at the Herman Creek trailhead today - didn't occur to me that there would be snowshoers in the mix! It looks like you were up in the snow pretty quickly, too!

I think your snowshoe troubles were strictly a case of a lot of fresh, dry snow. They just aren't that great on powder, but give them some Cascade Concrete, and you can sail along at a better clip.

The snow up at Mount Hood was pretty heavy yesterday - maybe all that east wind in the Gorge is preserving the powder a bit more than on Hood?

Great pics - and yes, that's Chinidere. That little snow patch at 4:00 from the summit is the scree slope above Hicks Lake.

Tom

Re: Nick Eaton Ridge - Jan 1, 2008

Posted by joerunner (2008-01-10)

I would have not liked being up on St Helens that day.

Great pictures. I really like the Tomlike Mt shot. I think that is Chindere to the right but I'm not sure.

Except for one little gorge trip I pretty much turned in my trail shoes for the treadmill<yuck>. Your report makes me want to get back out there.

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