I arrived at Paradise Park Trailhead around 11am. There was one other car there, but it seemed they were on a different trail. It was a gloomy day with rain in the forecast. Mushrooms were popping out left and right. After starting on paradise trail #778 for just a bit, I spotted a particularly spotless mushroom:
I continued on the trail up the hill and started to cut toward Lady creek when I saw the Mt. Hood Wilderness sign on a tree. The descend down to Lady creek was not too difficult. There was no heavy bushes, and I was mostly walking on a smooth path that zigzagged all the way down to the creek.
Just a little bit upstream, I encountered a small waterfall
The creek is mostly a giant bedrock. There's not much "the-creek-is-lava" to play, but it was easy to walk on. A little bit further up the stream, I reached Lady Creek Falls. It was greener and more beautiful than I expected. I hang around there for a while and went up the waterfall on the left (facing upstream).
Took a peak at the waterfall from the top
I went quite far upstream of the waterfall, but I didn't encounter any other big waterfalls, what I found instead was this fantastic mushroom kingdom. Guarding the kingdom's border was this lion:
There are a lot of these little guys scattered all around along the creek as well. They must be confused and think they are corals under the sea.
Then I spotted this thing that looks like some monster from a horror manga:
I thought this was an upside-down mushroom, but it's right side up and rooted in the ground. I have no idea what happened here:
But nearby, I spotted its sibling that doesn't look as "damaged":
From under side, it looked like quite the beast
There were a lot more varieties of mushrooms. Some were green, some looked like chestnuts, some looked like pancakes with face. Too many for me to post a picture for each. But here's my favorite: they are purple with white spots. they look cosmic, and they match the space cat pants I was wearing.
I was hoping to go even further upstream the creek, but my feet were getting too cold, and it was getting late in the day. I turned around at 45.333137, -121.792742 and headed back. I made it back to where I first got on the creek without a problem, but from there, I had trouble getting back on the trail. At some point, all directions look the same, and it was really easy to get lost. I had to pull out my phone and used its gps to find my way back.
