Oregon Hikers

The road to Frazier Trailhead is still blocked by snow not far from High Rock.

East Zigzag Mountain neighborhood 6/16.

At 4971', East Zigzag Mountain is bare, or at least the trails on both sides are.

If you want to go east towards Paradise on the Zigzag Mountain Trail, you'll encounter snow at the Burnt Lake North junction, but the trail can be followed almost all the way to a high point at 4920', from which the trail plunges east down a narrow bare ridgecrest.

Cast Lake Trail is partly snowy and can be tricky to follow.

Zigzag Mountain Trail south of Cast Lake Trail is a soppy mess.

Spent yesterday on the West side of Mt. Jefferson after snagging a last minute permit for Pamelia lake entry. On the Hunts Creek trail, patches of snow started about 4700' and became more persistent above 5000'. Hanks lake was maybe 10% melted out, and the bowl was still holding a bunch of snow. Hunts Lake, 100' higher elevation than Hanks, was completely melted out. Goes to show the effects of local topography.

The Grizzly peak trail had patchy snow around 4700', and the only significant coverage was a quarter mile stretch at about 5500' on a north facing slope. I had spikes but didn't bother putting them on, sticks and careful foot placement were plenty for that short stretch. I did pass a trail runner who had turned back though.

Mt. Jefferson itself had significant snow.

June 15th - Sky Lakes Wilderness - Snowbanks start around the 6000ft level, mostly off-trail. On-trail snowbanks around the Seven Lakes region between Cliff and Alta Lakes. Manageable without special gear but GPS is nice to have. PCT was mostly clear or at least easy to follow.

Still lots of snow on upper part of Shorthorn Trail on Mt Adams, starting about 1.5 miles up at maybe 5500 feet. Four foot thick snowbanks that go for a hundred yards. There are melted out places along the Round the Mountain Trail above to camp on if you look around.

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Trails on Benson Plateau all clear. The mosquitos on the other hand...

4410 going up to High Prairie is clear. The trail is passable but there are some fairly substantial drifts that you have to climb over when you get clear of the meadows.

naturallog wrote: ↑

June 19th, 2021, 7:18 am

The mosquitos on the other hand...

Yep. Getting on time to start a 'Bug Report' thread.

Top of Ed's Trail, north of Silver Star, 4000':

Elkhorns:

Spent 6/19-6/21 at Twin Lakes with a trek up toward Rock Creek Butte.

The only notable impeding snow in that area was where the Elkhorn Crest trail hugged the north side of the ridge just east of Rock Creek Butte. It just took a bit of Class 3 scrambling to hop to the top of the ridge and around it... and it will probably be gone within a week or two.