Cause of dozens of toppled trees at Hunts Cove?

[justpeachy]

I backpacked to Hunts Cove for the first time this weekend. I saw dozens of toppled trees along the trail into the cove as well as at Hanks Lake. Some trees appear to have been snapped off about 20-40 feet up the trunk, while others were totally uprooted. Meanwhile, plenty of live trees remain standing. Obviously trees fall over all the time, but there were so many in such a concentrated area I wondered what caused this. Any ideas? Looks like it maybe happened within the past five years or so. It appears to have negatively affected the area of campsites at the north end of the lake, although I obviously don't know what it looked like before.

[texasbb]

I have no idea about this specific situation, but I do know that twisting trees off partway up is something tornadoes do. Here's a picture from the late 1970s of the aftermath of a tornado at my home:



Yes, there were some that were uprooted too.

[retired jerry]

On mt hood there are areas with blown over trees, like on yocum ridge or above top spur trailhead.
It's like a tornado. It must have been during a wind storm and a few places had especially strong wind.
If you're below McNeil shelter you can look over at yocum ridge and see it. Walking through on the timberline trail you have to cross over and under many trees

[idoru]

Couple of shots I took of the Yocum Ridge blowdown from the Timberline Trail along Bald Mountain this past July...

[adamschneider]

Here's a close-up view of the 2020 windstorm damage on the north side of Bald Mountain Ridge on Mt. Hood. The trees broken halfway up were the most striking feature to me.

[bbrewer]

I always assumed those trees went down during the Labor Day 2020 windstorm. I figured it was the same fateful event that wreaked havoc along the Glacier Way trail down by the North Sister.

The main camping area at Northwest corner of Hanks Lake is still workable, but definitely not as nice as before.