- Mt. Hood over the spine of Wooly Horn Ridge
Took a quick jaunt up the Herman Creek Trail to Tomlike on Saturday. The weather was perfect for it, clear skies and warm. Started from the trailhead just after 6am and were at the top before noon. The trail is excellent as far as Slide Creek, then there's quite a bit of blowdown across the trail beyond that for the remainder of the burn zone (see drm's post in the snow level thread). Once you hike out of the burn zone, the trail clears up again.
Snow started about Cedar Swamp. The east fork of Herman Creek would have been a ford, but there's a couple logs just downstream that you could scramble across to keep your feet dry. We took Bosterson's Express Route for the last 1000', saving us about a mile of sidehilling in the snow. It's fairly steep, but the snow conditions were very good for kicking in steps without postholing.
- Starting up the Express Route
- Part way up
Somewhere on the way up Mt. Hood begins peeking over Waucoma Ridge.
- First views of Mt. Hood
From the top of the Express Route, there's still a couple hundred feet and a stretch of that stunted forest to navigate to the high point of Tomlike. The exposed ridge was mostly melted out, with plenty of spots at the top to each lunch and soak in the views. There's a reason this is my favorite place in the whole gorge, maybe in all of Oregon.
- Tomlike, flanked by two Washington volcanos
Return trip was uneventful. Plunge stepping, plus a little glissading, had us back down the Express Route in ten minutes. From there it was a leisurely three and a half hours back to the trailhead.
- Express Route down
- Where the Express Route meets the trail proper
