Tanner Butte 6-15-08

[wraithevolution]

The trail is pretty clear all the way up to the Wauna point cutoff. After that, there's ALOT of downed tree litter and whole trees. There's a pretty big block about a quarter mile past Wauna but nothing anyone can't get around. I finally started hitting snow around 3000 feet, full ground coverage. At about 3400, the trail was completely gone and someone had been marking the trail with the "trail ribbons." The ribbon trail was quite a ways off from the actual trail as I know it well. I confirmed this on my gps as well. The ribbon trail ends after about a mile and you need to break hard right to locate the old logging road, which is quite obvious despite the snow. Continuing on, the road ends again and the trail narrows down to where it's typically overgrown quite a bit. Instead, the snow was so deep, there was no semblance of a trail anywhere. There are a few random prints here and there but there is no ribbon marking. Knowing where the trail was, I decided to follow the prints instead to see where they led. They spread out in different directions and most ended after only a short bit. Everything looks the same with so much snow and it seems most gave up. I had to resort to my gps at this point and got back on track. I made it all the way to the final clearing but decided not to summit as the snow just kept getting deeper. It was hard packed enough to walk on top without falling through, but near the top, the snow depth is still about 3 to 4 feet, packed. I've never seen anything like this before, this late in the season. Unless you have this trail gps'd already and/or have full topo's on your gps, this can be a very dangerous hike right now, especially if you've never done it before. Getting lost up there is very easy right now. And while I didn't go to Dublin Lake, I can guarantee you it's still covered. At the trail cut, there was still about 2 feet of snow, packed.

Can you see the trail?! I couldn't!



Nice shot of Mt Hood



Deep deep snow

[parkrangersue]

Great report. I usually camp at the lake around the 4th of July, it looks like I better put off my trip till the end of July.

[retired jerry]

I was thinking of going up to Dublin Lake in the next couple days, but now I'm not so sure, thanks for the report

I was up there April 6, 2007 and there was about the same amount of snow as you reported, so we're a couple months later this year

[wraithevolution]

I was thinking of going up to Dublin Lake in the next couple days, but now I'm not so sure, thanks for the report

I was up there April 6, 2007 and there was about the same amount of snow as you reported, so we're a couple months later this year

Yeah, it looks like we're gonna have a short camping season. I'm sure it will melt eventually but we've got a ways to go. It was really shocking to see how much was still up there.