Oregon Hikers

pinecone wrote: ↑

July 12th, 2022, 4:07 pm

I've got some continuously updating reports specific to the Timberline Trail at https://elevationchanges.com/timberlinetrail/

Wonderful website! The ability to quickly compare 2021 and 2022 snow levels is particularly useful. Thank you for creating and maintaining it!

Greg

Wonderful website! The ability to quickly compare 2021 and 2022 snow levels is particularly useful. Thank you for creating and maintaining it!

Thanks! I stopped by the Zigzag Ranger station yesterday and they had printed out and laminated the 1 July 2021 and 2022 snow maps to help illustrate the difference in the snowpack to visitors, that they are dealing with many questions for this year. Hopefully no one notices my label for Cooper Spur autocorrected to Copper Spur on those labels, and I didn't catch it till the next week's map.

Quick report about snow in the Wallowas. Started at East Eagle, went up Little Kettle to Crater Lake, then down to the South Fork Imnaha. High point 7600' and no snow on the trail at all.

From what I can suss from the Sentinel satellite images adamschneider taught me how to access, the Wallowas still have considerable snow above 7800 ft as of Friday 7/15/22, but things seems to be melting right along at a good clip. Which is good, because I'm headed out there this week. I'm expecting lots of mosquitoes up near the snow line.

Yocum Ridge 7/17, the trail is readily navigable up to the viewpoint at 6000'. There's patchy snow starting at maybe 5400', most patches were small enough that you could see the trail continue on the other side, and the few that were larger had good tracks to follow.

The trail finally disappeared under snow on the north side of the ridge about 6400', in that steep section where the runout wouldn't be fun. There were some tracks continuing up, but I had foolishly left my ice axe at home so had to call it a day there.

No report on McNeil, other than I'm sure glad I didn't go there instead of Yocum.

It's melting, yeah!!!

"in that steep section where the runout wouldn't be fun"

I saw someone that slid on that steep snow and into the rocks below. Broke leg. Helicopter took them out.

Better to go to the left, up the "valley". Then there are easier places to get onto the ridge, where the runout is good if you slip and slide

Snow Report for Paradise Park:

July 22-23rd: Some small snow patches from Timberline Lodge to Paradise Park Trail along the PCT. One couple I encountered seemed intimidated going up the Paradise Park trail from the PCT since they lost the trail once or twice, but nothing too tough. Pup and I made it up to Split Rock and back to Timberline Lodge in trail runners. Snow is melting fast though. Lookout for small snow bridges as I fell once as the ground gave way beneath me.

Happy trails!

Went up to Goat Rocks for a few days.

Above about 6000 feet, there were small snow fields to cross but they had boot paths:
Goat Lake is barely starting to melt. The trail is totally snow covered, going up that ridge in the center of the picture. It wouldn't have been too difficult but I just turned around there. There was also a snowfield to cross getting to the lake, but it was pretty level so not too difficult.
I got up to about 6800 feet getting to Old Snowy. Somebody said it was "gnarly" so I thought that was a good spot to turn around.

I went up to Cispus Pass. A few small snowfields to cross. South from Cispus Pass:

Mississippi Head today.
Getting up to the top of MH was a little easier than I'm accustomed to, plenty of snow. From there, I enjoyed a long standing glissade almost all the way to the crash site, so that's about 800' I guess. Took the clockwise loop to the benchmark viewpoint and up along ZZ Glacier, mostly on snow.

[I haven't done this in so long, I forgot how the pic sequence gets inverted]

Snow level in the Clackamas canyon was about 3700' today. It was also evident that there's been snowfall the last couple days.
I can't say much about depth. It was miserable slushy, and small trees were drooping with the weight. And slushbombs. Not fun. I turned back. Maybe about 3" I guess.