Forest Road 34 meadow near West Crater

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ChrisA
Posts: 54
Joined: June 11th, 2021, 12:14 pm
Location: Vancouver, WA

Forest Road 34 meadow near West Crater

Post by ChrisA » June 20th, 2021, 7:13 am

We were interested in a meadow we saw on google earth, west of west crater. GPNF conditions said the West Crater trail was 'accessible'. So I figured the road (FR34) would be ok. The road was narrow and brushy in spots up to West Crater Trail. A short distance past it, were a few rocks which were easily cleared. Past that was this tree across the road.
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Tree across road.
FR 34 past this spot looked to be in good shape and appeared to have been traveled on from the other direction. So we parked at the West Crater trailhead (wide spot in the road, no signs) and walked up. We found a trail into the meadow. It was beautiful!
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Meadow.
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Meadow and hillside.
There were some mosquitos and flies.
We continued on up to a road intersection that I hoped would lead to Twin Rock. It dead ended and the bugs were a little too much to continue. We did get nice views of St. Helens, Hood, Rainer and Adams.
On the way back we stopped at Hemlock picnic area and had a nice lunch and short walk along Trout Creek.
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Trout Creek.

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Chip Down
Posts: 3037
Joined: November 8th, 2014, 8:41 pm

Re: Forest Road 34 meadow near West Crater

Post by Chip Down » June 20th, 2021, 9:27 am

ChrisA wrote:
June 20th, 2021, 7:13 am
We were interested in a meadow we saw on google earth...
That can be lots of fun, but it's weird how sometimes GE doesn't really capture the beauty of some spots, while other places appear better on GE than in person. Anyway, better than the old days when we would rely on guidebooks or word of mouth.

I was a little surprised to see that fringe of snow..."I'm melting, melting!"

ChrisA
Posts: 54
Joined: June 11th, 2021, 12:14 pm
Location: Vancouver, WA

Re: Forest Road 34 meadow near West Crater

Post by ChrisA » June 20th, 2021, 2:09 pm

[/quote]
I was a little surprised to see that fringe of snow..."I'm melting, melting!"
[/quote]

We were also surprised by a 30-40 foot x 12" high drift on FR34 near the intx with 54. Very little snow otherwise.

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