The wife, and I arrived at Lava Lake Trail head on the North side of the loop around 1:30 AM and hiked a mile or so before finding a flat spot to set up a cowboy camp.
We decided to hike the trail clockwise to get the hot dry east side out of the way early. The last time we hiked this loop the dogs had a hard time with the heat and dry volcanic sand on the east side.
A plump horny toad.
A trail maintenance crew recently cleared the downs which the forest service mentions on their webpage. There are basically no down trees on the east side. The west side had a few downs. We probably encountered a dozen downs during the entire hike.
There is still lingering snow on the climb up from Park Meadow to Green Lake Pass with large patches of continuous snow on the top; staying on trail required effort in this area.
We camped on the pass above Green Lakes with beautiful views of Broken Top and the Sisters. The slight breeze kept the bugs from joining us for cocktail hour.
Hit the trail early in the morning and were surprised to find it had dropped below freezing over night, the snow melt puddles had frozen. We donned our microspikes to hike down the icy snow to Green Lakes.
Most of the designated campsites at Green Lakes are melted out. We saw a couple of tents at the lakes.
We wanted to climb South Sister but were worried about the dogs getting too tuckered out so my wife offered to stay with the dogs above Lake Moraine while I hiked up South Sister. The weather was perfect for the climb. It took almost 4.5 hours hours up and back. There is a bit of snow half way up until just bellow 9000 ft. And then its dry trail to the summit.
Wickiup Plains are not at their prime yet, in a few weeks the grass will be green and wildflowers will be in full bloom.
Really? Is laying unsightly branches and dumping rocks along the trail really what needs to be done to keep people from hiking off the trail?
The bugs were out in full force around Mesa Falls creek until the snow started up again. We had to camp under the tarp with head nets on.
The next morning we again found lots of ice and the snow got continuous. Many times we gave up trying to follow the trail and just contoured along in the snow. We pulled out the GPS once and confirmed we were 0.4 mile above the trail but otherwise we didn’t need to use the GPS.
- Suncups
