My wife and I headed out to Elk
Meadows for a Valentines campout in the snow. We arrived at the
Hood River Meadows sno-park around 10:30am and were on our way to Elk
Meadows shortly thereafter. Once we left the parking lot we didn’t see anyone else all weekend. The weather on Saturday was rather mild and the snow was fairly mushy in the sun and a little crusty in the shade; definitely a far cry
from the powdery conditions of last weekend.
We crossed Clark Creek on the bridge, but there was also a small snow bridge people were using. We were able to cross Newton Creek on a snow bridge as well. There are actually two snow bridges there, but they appear to be melting quickly.
We ascended the switch backs up to
Gnarl Ridge which were fairly icy. The well-worn trail was melted out a little and we had to make short traverses across moderately seep, icy slopes, but they didn’t pose any major difficulties for us in our snowshoes.
Here's a pic of a pregnant tree in case you ever need to explain to a child where baby trees come
from!
Once on the
ridge we went straight through the forest to Elk
Meadows since there was no marked trail. We set up our tent on the edge of the
meadows and unloaded a bunch of our gear.
We then cut our way up to the top of Bluegrass
ridge and headed over to Elk Mountain. There are definitely no views
from the summit of Elk Mountain, at least none that we could find. Personally, I don’t think it should be called a mountain if there are no views! We descended the NW
ridge of Elk Mountain and intersected the
Gnarl Ridge trail and headed up to its intersection with the Timberline trail. We had a late lunch and headed back to our campsite to get setup for the night. It was pretty cloudy on Saturday and there weren’t many views to be had. We had a few light flurries, but no significant accumulation.
Back at camp we got the inside of our tent setup and a kitchen shoveled out of snow. Shoveling snow is a great way to stay warm.
We had a lovely candlelight dinner of scalloped potatoes and Buffalo chicken accompanied by a little Pinot Grigio and finished off with mini cheesecakes for dessert. We even managed to have a romantic campfire built on the snow!
The weather cleared overnight and the temperature plunged to 18F. We managed to stay toasty warm though, although our boots were a little frozen as we forgot bags for them so we could bring them into the tent.
Sunday morning we had ham and eggs and oatmeal for breakfast and headed off to Bluegrass
ridge for a strenuous trek by 10am. We headed straight up to the top of Bluegrass
ridge.
We followed the
ridge NE to its high point at ~5600ft and then continued NW along the
ridge top as it started to descend. The
ridge is a little eery in that it was hit hard by fire. I’d guesstimate that only 1 in 100 trees survived in some areas. The contrast of the burnt trees and white snow was beautiful! We had incredible views of
Hood, Jefferson, Adams and St. Helens. We could even see the Sisters in the distance.
We descended the
ridge to about the 5000ft level at which point we had to make a decision. Beyond this point the western aspect of the
ridge gets a little steep. You could probably drop step down the slope in boots, but if you choose to continue, it would be better to follow the
ridge down to its northern end in order to get off of it, about another 2 miles. We decided to descend the western aspect on moderately steep snow slopes and headed back to camp along the base of the
ridge on its west side on trail #645 along Cold Springs Creek.
The trail back was quite easy to follow and we saw plenty of wild life tracks, including elk tracks. The trail also marks a fairly clear line between burned and non-burned areas. These next two pics were taken
from the same spot; one looking left, the other looking right.
Once back at camp we quickly packed up and headed back to
Hood River Meadows in order to beat the ski traffic home.
When we got back to the parking lot we didn’t see our car. We were like, WTF (Where’s the Forester)! Our car was missing! Uh-oh! Prior to leaving, I check ODOT’s website and discovered that you are permitted to park overnight in a sno-park so long as there is no signage to the contrary. There is no such signage at HRM, so I expected the worst. We went and talked with people at the Nordic ski center and they said there was no overnight parking and that we were likely towed to the main Mt.
Hood Meadows lodge. We jumped on a shuttle, headed to the lodge and found our car sitting there safely amongst some RVs.
We talked with parking and security staff and they said they tow any vehicle left overnight. Fortunately we did not have to pay anything for the tow. This raises a question, one that the staff at Mt.
Hood Meadows could not answer. If you want to camp in the snow, where can you park? It’s an odd arrangement down at HRM. It’s US Forest Service land, the lot is maintained by ODOT, but Mt.
Hood Meadows has ‘control’ over it as a private entity. There is RV parking at the lodge, but we were told a car can’t park there overnight. What’s a person to do?
Sorry for the poor quality pics, we only had an iPod with us.
