I picked up Dustin around 4:00 am to meet up at Vista Ridge by 6:00 am. The other guys
met up at a Freddie's on Powell and Burnside around 4:30. T-Roy and ForestKeeper
drove up following Mayhem and Sean while Dustin and I just went straight to the TH.
Dustin and I ended up following both of the other cars not knowing the first one was
T-Roy as he said he would be using his Pilot, so when they pulled off Lolo Pass road
we just whizzed by. Caught up to Mayhem and Sean and they asked what happened
to Roy and FK, lol! I guess they stopped to look at Porcupines and got a bit lost making
the turn onto NF 16. We waited for about 10 minutes at the next junction and decided
to just get to the TH and do a hike.
Pavement for good stretches and a few 5 mile sections of decent gravel, quite surprised
actually. Glad I didn't drive a nice car as we got side tracked and really scratched up
or vehicles on a wrong turn.
Got to the TH about 6:30 or so and waited till about 7:00 and decided to just get hiking.
First Mayhem had to set up the recliner and a beverage for T-Roy at the TH in case
they showed up -
Sean saw fit to test it out for Tom first -
Sky cam.com -
Trail sign seems to be intact -
Walked up past the junction with Vista Ridge trail that heads towards Red Hill and thought we
would hike up to Eden Park or something -
Thought we would do some sort of loop around to Eden Park but for one reason or another
it just didn't happen. Turns out the trail we hiked last week on the Hood 360 is the upper
part of the Eden Park mini loop and the lower part might really be the TT 600? Still not sure,
maybe someone who knows anything can answer this one. Here is a trail sign and the lower
loop junction with no signage saying anything about heading to Eden Park -
Meandered a bit and visited a mobile Tillamook dairy aid station up in here somewhere -
Met a Hood 360 two day hiker as well -
Also met this dude -
Me and the TFF's were walking down towards Eden Park on the upper loop but Mayhem
said forget it there was no loop and we turned around. Worked out well since we might have
missed eventually hiking into legends T-Roy and ForestKeeper!
Stopped and talked to a nice woman who mentioned seeing our missing buddies just down a piece,
hooting and hollering ensued and we finally got to hike with these guys!
Pretty funny as I guess FK and T-Roy decided to also not hike the original hike and headed up
the same way we went. We convinced them to turn around with us and we would hike most
of the original hike plan up to Red Hill and maybe Owl Point.
ForestKeeper keeping it real -
Took a small break for a Brad Button Award Ceremony -
Thanks again Brad for that button stash!
I popped out of the Vista Ridge trail and snapped off a few -
Me GPS had Red Hill aka Mars Landing Zone Rover Place listed so we off trailed it a bit on up
and sure glad we did. Has to be one of the coolest places for Hood pictures, the DSLR boys
will surely bust off some eye candy shortly -
Mars mission commander -
And Sean dancing the Mars jig -
FK -
Tom enjoying another Dr. Pepper!
I high tailed it out off of the rover landing zone and cut across a bit down lower to attempt to
get home by 2:00
Ended up getting home about 2:30, not bad considering how awfully slowit is to get to and from this remote TH!
Some TH poopie bag -
I guess the guys also bumped into some other folks asking about where to go on Vista Ridge,
Mayhem sent me this one -
And the guys back at the TH after me -
Guys, awesome hike and fun times from the start when picking up Dustin at Burgerville
at 4:00 am to the very end up there on in the red rocks! You guys are the best!
I logged 10.4 miles and a little over 2500' of EG for the day, you guys probably had another
1/2 mile since you didn't 'schwack down the ridge!
