Tumala Mountain 7/8/08

[cfm]

Tumula Mountain is the new name for the summit in the Clackamas area formerly known as Squaw Mountain. It is an old lookout site, and there are three ways to get up there: two trails and an old road. Splintercat has a FG entry for it via the Twin Springs Trail, but I chose a different route -as described by Sullivan -using the Fanton Trail, because access to the TH is a shorter drive and seemed more likely to be snow free.

Directions to the Fanton Trailhead: Take 224 south through Estacada and after a mile or two, turn left on Surface Road, then turn right onto Squaw Mountain Road, and follow it 13.4 miles to an unmarked gravel turnoff, which goes over Fanton Creek and ends at an old logging deck. Park here.The trail is on the left side of the road, before the stream.

More than half of the trail in the woods is still snow covered with old hardpacked crunchy stuff overlayed with tree debris that you can easily walk on.

I followed it for awhile, but trailfinding in the snow is annoyingly time consuming so when I spied the ridgetop, I just wandered up the hillside, using my gps to point me to the summit.

It's about a 2 mile hike to the top with an elevation gain of 1000 feet.


The summit was mostly snow free with flowers blooming and lovely vistas in all directions.

avalanche lily, Erythronium montanum:

me and Wyeast on the lookout steps:


More pictures here.

[pablo]

Great report, I was wondering how the melt off was going in that area. I tried Tumala Mtn. earlier this spring and was turned back by deep snow. Nice pictures especially the rhodies and Hood.

Thx,

--Paul