Determined not to give in to Daylight savings time we stuck with our usual meeting time of 8:00am at the Sandy Safeway & from there set off for the Hood River Meadows Nordic Center. Roads were surprisingly quiet and when we arrived at the Nordic center there were only 2 other cars in the parking lot! We set off in the direction of Clark Creek.
Clark Creek is easy to cross - there is a bridge! a mile after Clark you reach Newton Creek where there is no bridge but we did find a snow bridge!
Having not done this hike in the Winter time before I was expecting the Newton Creek Crossing to be the most difficult part of the day but it wasn't the climb up out of Newton Creek was! in fact after the first couple of Hundred feet all the snow shoe tracks that were in front of use ended & we were on our own! We found it easier to leave where the trail should have been & just headed up the slope!
We didn't make any attempt to follow trails after this point but navigated from trail junction to trail junction looking for the trail signs as we approached each junction to double check we weren't too lost
.. All the trail signs we saw today we conveniently at foot level.
On reaching the Elk Meadows / Elk Mountain Junction we headed up hill towards the summit of Elk Mountain. After a half mile uphill slog we reached the summit of Elk Mountain.
Then continued on to the overlook where the old fire lookout used to be.
From here we back tracked to the junction with the blue grass ridge.
We made our way along the ridge until we reached the scorched sign that marks the cutoff trail down to Elk Meadows.
We then made out way down the slope to Elk Meadows.
We found a snow bridge over the creek to get into Elk Meadows & then made our way over to the Shelter.
Time for Lunch
..
I've been to Elk Meadows many times but I have never been there when you can see the iconic view of Hood! Today was no exception while the meadow was in sunshine the Mountain was shrouded in clouds! One day I'll get to see it..
After a lazy lunch we set off directly across Elk Meadows to the Junction with Elk Mountain where we had been earlier in the day to close the loop.
Looking back at Blue Grass Ridge.
We were surprised to find nobody else at Elk Meadows & it looked like nobody had been there on Saturday Either! In fact we didn't see any one else anywhere on the trail today!
After closing the loop we just had the slog back & the slightly tricky decent down to Newton Creek.
A hop & a skip back accross Newton!
And then on to Clark!
We got back to the Nordic center just as it started to rain - perfect timing!
About 7 miles & 2200' of EG, & a few more pics of the day here.
Hillmap:
