Cue to the present day, and I've seen the stravas of a couple friends who have done the trail in a single day, so its been on my mind that its possible and I ought to get it done. I also became a father this year so I don't really have the time to take multiple nights for backpacking right now. With these thoughts and conditions on my mind, I recruited two of my best friends to do it in a day. Traditionally the three of us have been bike racers, both short and endurance events, but all three of us have developed an interest in long single day hikes and runs this year.
David and I drove up separately on Friday evening after work, Cristina, our third friend, had departed slightly earlier. David and I were going to sleep in our cars at the Timberline lot while Cristina opted for a bunk room. We hit crazy traffic due to a massive repaving effort on 26, but made it up around 8:30, we ate sandwiches and meal-in-a-bags and hit the hay around 9:30. Cristina and I had agreed to get going at 4am, while David, not wanting to wake so early, was going to sleep til 6 and then run/hike to catch up to us.
I got up, ate some bars and then off we went. There was not much to say about the first two hours in the dark. We were heading clockwise, the same direction I'd gone before, so even the dark, I was quite confident of the direction. We reached the overlook of the Sandy just around 6, having passed a number of tents and one hiker heading the other direction saying he was off to get a Blood Mary at the Lodge.
We descended down, did our first crossing of the day, and took a filter break at Ramona Falls, then it was up and over to the Muddy Fork, my first section of trail that I hadn't walked.
By this time, a few other hikers were about or getting up and we happily bounced along. The Muddy Fork crossing was tiny, and we climbed up again, up to Top Spur. Cristina's husband and a couple of other friends were meeting us there. As I'd find by the end of the trip, we didn't really need support, but it was nice to have a bail option available to rest my mind from freaking out about time. We met up with them around 9, took a 10 minute break to apply some blisters bandages and eat more bars, before heading for the long climb up to the McNeil turn-off. It still felt like we'd just begun hiking, even though we'd already been out for 5, then 6, then 7 hours.
I was very excited when we started to turn towards the North face of the mountain, we started to be greeted by great views of Helens, Rainier, and Adams. We eventually met up with the Vista trail which I'd hiked a few years ago and we made the familiar hike into Elk Cove for another filter break. After Elk Cove, everything was new to me again. The trail was clearly unmaintained and rougher, and we were hopping over fallen trees from the last few years since the Eliot crossing was closed. We passed by the very tidy Cairn Basin stone shelter, which I'd never seen before. This part of the trail was very beautiful, though surprisingly busy with runners "enjoying" the new Eliot crossing.
Cristina was flagging a little bit in this section, and I was anxious to see the new Eliot crossing, so I pressed on. Although I have to thank the volunteers for creating this new safe work-around, from a hikers perspective, it was a little hard to be excited about the new configuration. As you approach, you can see Cloud Cap on your level, and then you look down to the Eliot and you see the new trail, 4-500 feet beneath you. I descend the quite steep and dusty fresh trail, muttering the whole way, and got to the bottom. I waited a few minutes for Cristina, and then decided to run to the top of the trail to meet Cloud Cap and our friends. This was not the wisest decision, as in the afternoon heat, I got my heart going pretty good and felt tired and a little sick for the first time all day. We all connected at Cloud Cap, Cristina and I took a longer break, and then pressed on into the hot exposed climb to the Cooper Spur hut.
All this time, we'd been waiting on our friend David to catch us, and the fact that we were roughly 2/3s of the way done and he hadn't had started to make me concerned. I thought through some of the possible scenarios of where he might be, but there was no alternative but to keep going. He'd had the option to hike with us, but had started on his own path.
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I'd hiked up Cooper Spur before, but never continued South-Eastwards on the Timberline. This was my favorite part of the day. The Northeast face of the mountain and Cooper Spur towering overhead, the high elevation, the trail visible for miles ahead in the chunky rock, the little snow crossings, it's just the biggest feeling part of the trail, and since it was new, the thrill of hiking it was even higher. Just as we were about to reach Gnarl Ridge, we looked back and saw the distinctive run of our buddy catching up with us. No story, just that our walking pace had been strong, and that he'd only been able to run small portions to maintain energy.
Happy to be reunited, we walked on to our destiny. The descent to the area just above Elk Meadows was lovely and we were very chatty and happy. We started to see the lift equipment for Meadows, which inadvertently made my brain signal my body that our long hike would be over soon. This is not true. It seemed to take forever to actually reach Meadows, thanks to the descents and climbs around the Newton and the Clark.
The sky was clearly telling us that evening would be here before long, and I stayed anxious to finish without having to turn my headlamp back on again. It took a while to work our way through Meadows, and then we were descending one last time to the massively wide White River. We had done so just in the nick of time to see our friends on the other side. They had driven to the Lodge and hiked down, but the evening cold was setting in and they were just about to head back up the trail. The three of us made it over the random crossings that presented themselves, and then met up. We knew the final climb, while inevitable, wasn't going to feel short so late in the day, so David and I took off with a head full of steam to get to the Lodge.
Despite climbing at a pretty strong pace, we still only beat our friends to the top by 5 or so minutes, but to hike slowly at that point in the day would have felt even worse. We trudged down to our cars, changed and cleaned our blisters, said our goodbyes, and headed to Wrapitude in Welches for a burger and a coke before going home to our beds that night.
As many have said before, we Portlanders are extremely lucky to have such an incredible wilderness just 45 miles from the city. Mt Hood made me fall in love with Oregon almost 10 years ago, and it still brings a thrill to catch a sight of the mountain on the clear day from the city. Now I just need to learn safe glacier travel and summit the dang thing and I can call it a day! Thanks for reading!
More photos here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewfye ... 2666009590
Strava/GPS file here: https://www.strava.com/activities/707778223
