August 25-28,2011
Backpacked the entire Timberline trail around Mount Hood with my son 2 weeks ago. Still recovering so it took some time to post pics and details.
Day #1 We took the standard route starting from Timberline Lodge with first camp at Ramona Falls on THursday night. ALmost got lost at the ZigZag overlook, but another group fortunately looked back and found the trail for us. Sandy river crossing with the log bridge was pretty simple. We had the entire Ramona Falls site to ourselves and enjoyed playing in the water. Brief thunderstorm that night that turns out to be the cause of Dollar Lake Fire.
- Timberline Lodge looking south
- Zig Zag overlook
Day #2 Gorgeous section of trail between Yocum Ridge and Bald Mountain. There had been some recent washouts, but nicely repaired. This section was very quiet and we saw no other hikers. My favorite part of the whole trail. Beautiful flowers, salmonberries, and the waterfalls of the muddy fork of the Sandy River were wonderful. We put on riversandals for the crossing, but hopped on rocks and never got out knees wet. Great lookout at Bald Mountain. Long slog up toward McNeil point (we did get a little low on water during this hot afternoon). There were many mosquitoes and flies on this section. We climbed the spur trail up to McNeil Point with packs on which was well worth the effort. Then down through Cairn Basin. just after crossing the first branch of the Ladd creek with river shoes we found a very nice campsite in the canyon. The winds blew through in the night, and we were pretty cold here. It was a beautiful site and beautiful sunset, but due to the cold I wished we had pressed on to the sites a quarter mile further by the shelter.
- Bald Mountain overlook
- McNeil Point shelter
- amazing to look toward Portland and not be able to see it
- The sunset looking up from campsite #2
Day #3 Nice hike through ELk cove area. I suspect much of this is burned out now. Early that morning my son pointed out some smoke. We watched the beginning of the Dollar Lake fire all morning. IT was very slow and smoldering that morning. We did see a few helicopters fly by in the afternoon. Eventually made it to the "trail closed" section at the Eliot river. We spent an hour bushwacking through the brush down to the furthest spot we could get to if we had planned to follow the old trail. This still would have involved a hairy 20 foot drop down the boulder moraine so we turned back. No rope that I saw on either side of the river. So we turned back to Stranahan ridge. With my son I did not think we were up to the upriver trek to the glacier along Stranahan Ridge. We ominously met two groups of young and sturdy backpackers who had turned around to make the 5 mile trek back to Elk Cove and Laurance Lake.
- Dollar Lake fire viewed from the timberline trail on the morning of 8/27/2011
BUt...My National Geographic Map from 2009 (just purchased from REI last month) has a downriver Stranahan ridge trail on it that we tried to find but could not. So we took another route around the bridge out spot. I thought others might like to hear about it and is the main reason for this post. We walked back from the "trail closed" sign about 1/4 mile. It is just over the first small ridge and encountered a very small creek. We put on river sandals and waked down the creek about 1/2 mile, maybe 1,000 feet of elevation lost. At this point the small creek joins the Eliot Branch. About 200 yards upriver we were able to cross the ELiot mostly again just getting our ankles wet. It would have been much more difficult to cross the significant mid-day flow, but we found a large felled tree that we walked across about 8 feet high, 20 feet long. This was our toughest river crossing of the hike. Then the fun really begins. We climbed straight up Ghost ridge - about again another 1,000 feet elevation. It was very, very steep, requiring hands to grab roots and trees at times. But never unsafe, nd that may be the advantage of this route. WE saw lots of old firehose from the 2008 fire. Eventually we made it to the road at the top and walked a quarter mile to the cloud cap campground. I point out that I never felt unsafe during this route, although the river crossing was the most difficult of the entire loop. But it was time consuming and quite strenuous going up ghost ridge. I'm glad we did it, but it is a big commitment to walk this way. I suspect going down ghost ridge and up the creek bed in the opposite direction would have been easier. I think the stranahan ridge route on my map was also washed out by the glacier flow, so the true trail really is gone. I wish I had pictures or GPS of the route,but I put the camera away for the bushwaking portions. I suspect this whole section burned during the Dollar Lake fire so It probably looks really different now.
After a long rest at the campground, we hiked up to the cloud cap shelter and camped nearby. Beautiful light that evening from the central oregon forest fires. WE definately saw more people at this point on a Saturday afternoon. Thanks to the two other Dads and their three boys for playing with us. It was a highlight of the trip for my son to get a few moments away from Dad playing on the glaciers. We walked up the spur trail from the shelter to the bottom of the Eliot glacier and it semed pretty safe on the Southeastern side. BUt we did not cross over the whole glacier.
Day #4 I was not sure we were going to make it back to the car today since we still had about 13 miles to go. But we made a early start, and mostly it was downhill after the short climb to the TT highpoint. We made really good time down Gnarl Ridge to the Newton Creek. Again a pretty easy river crossing with sandals. We made it to Mt Hood Meadows by noon. Had we been much later I would have hiked out at this point. BUt we still had plenty of daylight and a strong desire to finish. Basically it was a long slog up the sandy trail from the White River. yummy wild blueberries to eat. But we soon were able to see the lodge and made it back t the car by 4pm. THis had been the longest backpacking day of my life, but all morning was downhilll so that really helped.
- The lupine was out in full force
It was an absolutely wonderful trip. I think my son really dug deep and learned some lessons about needing to solve your own problems in the wilderness. We are definately closer because of the trip, and I will plan to repeat it someday with my other kids. Hopefully I will not have to climb Ghost ridge again.
