I got a very late start on Sunday and, thinking that a soaking was imminent, decided on a low-elevation hike on the Washington side of the river. As I was driving out, however, Mt. Hood, with only a high mantle of clouds, was clearly visible and I opted for an excursion on its lowest slopes.
The Pioneer Bridle Trail heads up north of Rhododendron, crosses Highway 26, and then switchbacks up the slopes of Laurel Hill to Government Camp. Hiking up here, one is granted the experience of treading on, or near, a succession of five passageways representative of the history of ground transportation in the state: the Barlow Road, part of the Oregon Trail (completed in 1846); one of the Territorial Stage Roads (1866), the first two-way road over the mountain; the Mt. Hood Loop Highway (1925); the Pioneer Bridle Trail (constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s on or near the track of the first two); and federal Highway 26 (1959), which provides the hiker with background noise for most of the walk.
I parked at the trailhead just east of the Kiwanis Camp Road, the route of the old Mt. Hood Loop Highway. The Pioneer Bridle Trail is no longer used much by horses, or hikers for that matter, but it is a popular mountain bike route (No bikers on Sunday, however). The trail switchbacks up, generally following the Stage Road, but sometimes cutting across it. This area has some manzanita slopes and trees are all of a uniform age, having grown up since the 1952 Zigzag Burn. At a level area, orange paint dots and flagging heading off into the woods denote the track of the Oregon Trail. There is no boot path here, but you can follow these markers up and over a hillock (When Barlow built his road, he mainly just cut down trees; to avoid making cuttings or fills, the wagon road goes over the top of hills and along ridges rather than along their sides - the wagons tipped too easily). There is an Oregon Trail marker in the woods here and the wagon track is visible most of the way.
I rejoined the Bridle Trail and headed up the stagecoach road bed where it is cut into a scree slope flaming with vine maple. Where the Barlow Road leaves the Stage Road/Bridle Trail, its track is marked in the woods by new flagging. Soon, I passed an old mineshaft and then reached the horse tunnel under an abandoned section of the Mt. Hood Loop Highway.
Here I took a diversion to walk down the highway to visit Little Zigzag Falls. The trailhead here is in a quarry used to construct the old highway. I scrambled up to the top of the falls and crossed Little Zigzag Creek on a mossy log to find a faint trace of a path up the slope and then along a ridge line to rejoin the Bridle Trail close to Highway 26’s roar of traffic. It had rained earlier in the morning, and this little bushwhack through the huckleberries and rhododendrons managed to get me thoroughly soaked (“laurel” = an old-timey synonym for rhododendron).
The Bridle Trail heads into woods of larger trees, crosses skunk-cabbage creeks, and meets the Enid Lake Ski Trail. I looped left and ate lunch at little Enid Lake, which I usually see in the winter under five feet of snow while on kids' ski trips. No view of Mt. Hood from the lake, however, as the clouds were closing in.
Then I picked up the Bridle Trail again to descend past another track of the Barlow Road. Below the horse tunnel, I scrambled up to Highway 26, sprinted to the other side, and picked up the Laurel Hill Chute Trail. The chute here is known as #3, one of five known chutes in the area where the pioneers’ prairie schooners were eased down steep, rocky slopes by rope or by using trees as a drag. This particular chute became eroded, unstable, and unusable rather quickly, so had a life of only about three years in the 1850s. Traces of the wagon trail and also a section of the Mt. Hood Loop Highway can be seen in this area as well. From the Chute Trailhead, I walked down the highway about 200 yards and reentered the woods at the end of the crash barrier and another section of the Barlow Road.
About 10 miles out and back, with diversions.
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