Vehicle access to Timberline Trail

Trip recommendations, current conditions, and other trail related Q&A
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surforcycle
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Joined: September 7th, 2013, 12:58 pm

Vehicle access to Timberline Trail

Post by surforcycle » September 26th, 2022, 9:05 am

Scoping out a CW hike on TL trail early Oct 2022 from Timberline Lodge.
Question: Where are car access points to enable shortest daily miles w/ little or no gear? What would trail miles be for each segment? Dirt 2 track w/b ok if it’s not horribly rough for a 4WD pu truck.

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retired jerry
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Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm

Re: Vehicle access to Timberline Trail

Post by retired jerry » September 26th, 2022, 10:13 am

Ramona Falls TH is a couple miles from TT. Paved road with 0.1 mile of gravel.

Cloudcap TH is on TT. 9 mile obnoxious gravel road.

Mount Hood Meadows is a couple miles from TT. Paved road. Sometimes they close a gate a couple miles further from TT

The field guide has detailed info - click on "field guide" above...

Webfoot
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Joined: November 25th, 2015, 11:06 am
Location: Troutdale

Re: Vehicle access to Timberline Trail

Post by Webfoot » September 26th, 2022, 10:34 am

There's also Top Spur trailhead, which is closer to TT than Ramona Falls TH unless I'm reading my map wrong.

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retired jerry
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Re: Vehicle access to Timberline Trail

Post by retired jerry » September 26th, 2022, 1:17 pm

oh, yeah, I forgot that. Maybe 1/2 mile from TH to PCT/TT

the road isn't too bad - about 3 miles of narrow paved, 2 miles of gravel, but it's pretty good

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teachpdx
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Location: Hillsboro, OR

Re: Vehicle access to Timberline Trail

Post by teachpdx » September 27th, 2022, 4:04 pm

If you're hiking with only a small amount of gear, I assume you can get around the mountain in three solid days. Clockwise would be ending day 1 Top Spur, ending Day 2 at Cloud Cap, and back to Timberline to end Day 3. Not sure of trail miles off the top of my head, but it's a pretty even distribution across the days.

There really aren't any good ways to break it into four days without having one or two of them being long and the other two being really short, or adding multiple miles down another access trail.

And I've driven my 2WD hatchback up to Cloud Cap many times, the road isn't nearly as bad as many other forest roads you could find yourself on.
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