Oregon Hikers

Badger Creek is in good shape. I got as far as Post Camp and saw no snow, and blowdown is modest.

Today I hiked on the Salmon Butte trail in the Salmon-Huckleberry wilderness near Mt. Hood (Wed, 5/17). I hiked about 4.5 miles up the trail and got up as far as ~4200 ft elevation before the heat kicked my butt. This is the point where the trail switches sides of the ridge after climbing six switchbacks. I did not encounter snow on the trail at all and only saw one rather large snow patch that was a couple hundred feet off the trail. No doubt there will be snow within the next half mile of where I stopped, but I was astonished that I made it up that high snow-free! To keep things interesting there were frequent peals of thunder from 2:15 pm until 4:30 pm, but no rain.

Trapper Creek canyon is open and in good shape. I went a little beyond the upper Deer Cutoff/Trapper Creek junction - just a few patches of snow and Trapper Creek has been logged (Deer Cutoff has not).

The Potato Hill snotel (north of Mt Adams) went from 50" to 26" in the last week. The Mt Hood Test Site snotel (which is 1000 feet higher) went from 100 to 73". The former got down to it's historic average, while the Mt Hood case is now below average for this date.

Most of Oregon is still above average snowpack but most of Washington is well below average. Washington's north cascades are at 60% of average.

Hiked a big loop tagging Green Point, Tomlike and Chinidere last week on 05/18/23, going up Nick Eaton and down the PCT. Heading south on the Nick Eaton trail, the snow starts near the plateau of Green Point around 4000 ft and continues through to Chinidere. The PCT is melted out heading north from Chinidere. Snow starts again on the Platter and is gone as you begin the descent to Teakettle. All snow was solid and we could walk on it with almost no post holing.

Nick Eaton has a pretty bad mess of tree debris in the burn area near the Casey Creek junction. The PCT has three pretty bad sections of bad blow down, as well.

I wish I had more time for a full report, but, hope this summary is helpful to some.

Thank you to everyone who has been adding updates to this forum on trail conditions. Nice to see. Also, thank you to Friends of Herman Creek for the help with the trail. I also hiked up Green Point from Herman last week, and snow begins around 4000 ft from that approach, as well.

Hiked up the Boulder Ridge Trail to the viewpoint on Huckelberry Mountain, May 23 2023. There were about 10 insignificant small snowfields near the 4300' highpoint. Trail is in great shape! I'd never hiked it before because I was always annoyed that I'd have to pay the BLM for the pleasure of hiking this Forest Service trail, but it was worth the $5.

Wed. May 24 I hiked up the Cast Creek trail in the Mt Hood wilderness, which has its trailhead in Riley Horse Camp outside Zigzag. Snow coverage started at 4000 ft. in an area that's generally north-facing.

Nesmith point, no snow

Hiked the Devils Peak -Salmon River loop, 05/27/23. Shockingly little snow on that route. Only a couple of very small patches while dropping off of Devils Peak on the way down to the Salmon River.

Less than expected at Skamania Mt (3200', western end of gorge, WA side). But on the way to Three Corner Rock, there's a traditionally-stubborn stretch at 3200' where the road was turning back Jeeps.
I was surprised to see just a trace of snow over on Lookout Mt (4200', a little east of Silver Star Mt).