Riley Camp-Horseshoe Meadow Loop Hike
From Oregon Hikers Field Guide
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- Start point: Williams Mine Trailhead
- Ending point: Horseshoe Meadow
- Hike type: Lollipop loop
- Distance: 15.6 miles
- Elevation gain: 3145 feet
- High point: 6,140 feet
- Difficulty: Difficult
- Seasons: Midsummer into fall
- Family Friendly: No
- Backpackable: Yes
- Crowded: No
Contents |
Hike Description
This approach to the subalpine areas of Mount Adams takes in some of the more interesting features of its western flank, including the site of the historic Sled Camp, Riley Meadows at Riley Camp, Sheep Lake, and Horseshoe Meadow. There could also be optional side trips to places like Island Lake, Crystal Lake, the Bumper, and Lake Camp. The loop is best done in a clockwise direction as you can look up from Riley Meadows to Mount Adams towering above. The first half of the hike will involve only a mile or two in scorched forest, while the return side of the loop spends a considerable amount of time in the 2012 Cascade Creek Burn.
Fill out your wilderness permit at the trailhead, and head up the Pacific Crest Trail. The forest is a mixed woodland of Douglas-fir, western hemlock, silver fir, western red-cedar, noble fir, Engelmann spruce and the occasional western white pine. Cross rushing Swampy Creek on a footbridge. A lush carpet of bunchberry, vanilla leaf, huckleberry, twin flower and foam flower underlies the coniferous canopy. Enter the wilderness, and pass a seasonal spring that issues from under a silver fir. Cross a brook, and follow the trail as it heads up more steeply in silver fir/Douglas-fir woods. Reach the Pacific Crest-Riley South Trail Junction, and make a left.
This 1.9 mile connector trail, formerly the southern end of the old Table Mountain Trail #8, drops to two footbridges over branches of Swampy Creek’s North Fork. A small plaque here honors Eric Kerested, Eagle Scout and engineer. Make a lengthy traverse up, passing through a few small glades carpeted with lupine and grouseberry in a woodland dominated by silver fir. Undulate along, keeping to a contour, and then drop a little to cross the rocky bed of Twin Falls Creek. Pass through a small meadow to reach the Riley Creek-Riley South Trail Junction, and go right.
Hike along in a carpet of lupine, bear-grass, huckleberry, and grouseberry. In 40 yards, you’ll past the entrance sign for the Mt. Adams Wilderness. Keep walking in this flat area before the trail rises a little to a junction marked by a 64 sign on a tree - the trail left leads to the site of Sled Camp, an old pre-World War II sheep camp. You’ll notice the remains of an Anita wood stove at the junction. A little farther in, the trail branches, the left fork leading to a meadow and the right fork leading past an old outhouse in the trees, then through a meadow and on into the woods.
Continue up the Riley Creek Trail (also known as the Riley Camp Trail), which now is stepped to prevent erosion. Start winding up, sometimes intersecting with the abandoned tread of the old Sled Camp Trail. Switchback twice, keep up, and then switchback four more times. Head up a ridge crest in a huckleberry understory. Make two short switchbacks, and traverse up to switchback twice more. Silver fir continues to dominate as the trail tread steepens and becomes stepped again. Enter the area of the 2015 Riley Creek Burn, and pass an expansive meadow on your right. (This is where fire crews camped in 2015.) Heading up, you’ll get views to Luna Lake, also known as Bertha Lake: a user trail leads down to the lake and around its shore.
Continuing up, reach a large false hellebore meadow: this is the jumping off point for the trip along an often very faint user trail to Island Lake, about half a mile due south. The trail winds up, still in the 2015 burn, around a series of rocky outcrops and lush hollows and then undulates along to head up through a series of small meadows. At this point the Riley Creek Fire reached the northernmost edge of the much more devastating 2012 Cascade Creek Fire. You’ll soon leave the burn area altogether, however, and enter a lush montane parkland of mountain hemlock, noble fir, and silver fir. Pass a large tarn on the left, with a smaller pool tucked behind it. Reach another meadow and its tarn off to the right. Past a small meadow, rise to a Trail #64 sign, and see a tarn down to the left. Undulating along, pass another tarn, and then reach the beginning of Riley Meadow.
Here the way is marked by posts installed by the WTA a few years ago although the tread is very obvious by the end of the summer. Enjoy views of Mount Adams’ west slope, including the Adams Glacier and the rubble-covered Pinnacle Glacier, as you walk the meadows. Riley Creek flows to the left, and a spur leads across it to Riley Camp. Keep on, following the posts, to cross two branches of Riley Creek before entering the forest again. The trail again is heavily stepped as you rise through a subalpine parkland of mountain hemlock and subalpine fir. When you reach the Pacific Crest-Riley Creek Trail Junction, turn right.
Wind through lush parklands, and cross rocky Riley Creek one more time. The trail rises to Sheep Lake, where you’ll find a spur leading right to campsites. Swing around through a meadow, and traverse up a slope to the saddle at Burnt Rock after entering the Cascade Creek Burn again. (The user route to Crystal Lake heads up the meadow slightly north of the ridge crest here: see the Riley Camp to Crystal Lake Hike.)
Switchback down and then up again through sedge meadows; then hike above an unburned forested bowl. Pass a viewpoint before reentering the Cascade Creek Burn to drop and then rise in a bouldery landscape. Get an unrestricted view here to the peaks of the Dark Divide and Mount Saint Helens. Pass below a domed andesite outcropping, and continue on above a small meadow. Hike through a rocky parkland below the looming hulk of the Bumper to the tune of alarm calls from the resident pikas. A spur to the right leads to a viewpoint looking west and south to Steamboat Mountain, the spine of Indian Heaven, Sleeping Beauty and eventually Mount Hood. The trail swings left and begins to descend above a northern lobe of Horseshoe Meadow. Arrive at the Pacific Crest-Round-the-Mountain Trail Junction, and take the short detour to the left to reach Horseshoe Meadow, getting a splendid view to the southwest slopes of Mount Adams and a section of the massive 1997 debris slide. In the meadows, paintbrush, lupine, lovage, subalpine daisy, pussytoes, partridge foot, Newberry’s knotweed, cinquefoil, and pussypaws will all be blooming in mid-summer. Unfortunately, most of the subalpine firs and mountain hemlocks surrounding this spot were scorched in the 2012 conflagration. There are good campsites on the west and south sides of Horseshoe Meadow although the creek here does not always run through the summer.
Return to the Pacific Crest-Round-the-Mountain Trail Junction, and go left. Traverse down among islands of unburned subalpine fir and mountain hemlock to reach the Pacific Crest-Stagman Ridge Trail Junction. Keep right here, and drop to pass through a small patch of unburned forest. Swing left down the slope before coming to an unmarked four-way junction. To the left is a tarn meadow below an andesite outcropping: there are a couple of campsites here. The trail to the right can be followed for about half a mile to the meadow with two tarns that accommodates Lake Camp.
Continuing down, and still in the burn, hike through bouldery hummocks interspersed with glades of false hellebore, partridge-foot, lupine, sedge, and woodrush. Pass by a large boulder which, in an emergency, could shelter two bodies stretched flat. Drop more steeply to pass below a large bouldery outcropping, make a gentle traverse down, and switchback in a carpet of bramble. Traverse down again, and switchback among huckleberry bushes that are ripe for the plucking at the end of August. Drop in a woodland of noble fir, Engelmann spruce, and silver fir, and come to a junction. A spur left leads to a campsite above a gushing spring that feeds the White Salmon River. Rise a little, and then traverse back into the burn to hike on the level in a lush carpet of wild strawberry, bear-grass, and huckleberry. Exit the burn, and descend to the Pacific Crest-Riley South Trail Junction, whence you can continue on down the PCT to the Williams Mine Trailhead.
Fees, Regulations, etc.
- Self-issued wilderness permit at the trailhead
- $3.50 toll each way at Hood River Bridge
Maps
- Maps: Hike Finder
- Green Trails Maps: Mount Adams, WA #367S
- Green Trails Maps: Mount Adams West, WA #366
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service: Mt. Adams Wilderness, Indian Heaven Wilderness, Trapper Creek Wilderness
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service: Mt. Adams Ranger District
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service: Gifford Pinchot National Forest
- National Geographic Trails Illustrated Map: Mount St. Helens - Mt. Adams
Trip Reports
- Search Trip Reports for Riley Camp-Horseshoe Meadow Loop Hike
Related Discussions / Q&A
- Search Trail Q&A for Riley Camp-Horseshoe Meadow Loop Hike
Guidebooks that cover this destination
- Day Hiking Mount Adams and Goat Rocks by Tami Asars
- Hiking the Gifford Pinchot Backcountry by the Columbia Group Sierra Club
More Links
- Trail #2000 Pacific Crest, Mt. Adams area
- Trail #64A Riley South (USFS)
- Trail #64 Riley Camp (USFS)
- Riley Camp – Horseshoe Meadows Loop (Just Peachy)
- Riley Camp (Washington Trails Association)
- Riley Camp Trail->PCT Loop, Mt Adams Wilderness (Went Hiking)
- “Riley Creek trail is a hidden gem” (The Daily News)
- Riley Trail #64 (Flora Northwest)
- Vascular Plant List: Riley Creek Trail (Washington Native Plant Society)
Page Contributors
- bobcat (creator)