Elevation Gain: Approximately 8400 ft.
Time: Saturday 8:00 am - Sunday 8:30 pm
Weather: Sunny, warm on Saturday; mostly sunny, warm Sunday. Perfect weekend in the PNW, again!
You might be surprised, but I did not have a "special" week 52 hike picked out. I knew I wanted to camp, but other than that I was open for anything. Many friends had expressed an interest in going on number 52 over the last year as well. About 2 weeks ago, one of my best friend from high school (who was on the first hike 52 weeks ago) and I tentatively planned a weekend together. The plan was to meet me in Portland, find a good over-nighter within an hour or two drive so he could be back at the airport Monday morning. He called on Monday this week and had to cancel.
I was a little sad only because I love him so much, and I would have loved to have him with me. His cancellation did, however, begin a fun search for both a route and some company. Add to this, I will be leading a 5 day/4 night backpacking trip with sophomores in 3 weeks, and I didn't know where I was going to take them. Thankfully, teachers were back on campus this last week, and I had plenty of friends to ask both for a route and if they wanted to go scout it this weekend with me. A friend suggested the Timberline trail, a 41 mile loop around Mt. Hood. For various reasons, this cannot be a trip with kids. The route with kids I will scout next weekend, but I really wanted to do this walk around Mt. Hood. I asked a lot of people, all who couldn't go. Then, I asked my good friend, Creighton, and, of course, he wanted to go. Remember last weekend he walked 93 miles in 3 days around Rainier. My plan to walk 41 miles in 2 days would be easy, for him. No matter how I broke up the 41 miles over the 2 days, one of the days would be the longest hike I've ever done on a single day. And if I did it right, both days would be my longest hikes in a single day.
We took off Friday night. Got to the parking lot of the Timberline Lodge around 11 pm. Creighton slept outside; I slept in the car. The plan was to set out at 7 am. Slept in until 7, but we were up and packed quickly. Went into the lodge, used the restroom, and looked if we had to check-in with rangers or something like that. We were told the trail is open, have fun, and be safe. We walked up from the lodge about a quarter of mile where we found the trail. We turned left, wanted to hike the loop in the clock-wise direction.
The trial starts simple enough, cutting across the melted ski fields above the lodge. We hiked under a chairlift, then we were off on a good mountain walk. The Timberline trail shares the path with the Pacific Crest Trail, like when two highways are the same for a small stretch. This was really cool for me, since I have never hiked any of the PCT and hope to hike the whole thing someday. The PCT is a 2,650-mile national scenic trail that runs from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon and Washington.
The morning was nice. We skirted along ridges, switch-backed down through forest, hiked narrow paths on rock scree, all the while being blown away by views of Mt. Hood. The trails were busy too. Many people out enjoying the lovely weather and the lovely scenery. We took a good break around noon near the Sandy River, then took off again. We reached a place called Ramona Falls around 1 pm. A beautiful waterfall, and I knew from my internet research it was the lowest elevation on the Timberline trail. We looked at the falls, then began walking up the south side Yocum Ridge.
This was one of my favorite stretches of the whole first day. The climb was not crazy hard, but it had my legs working. We were a little over 10 miles in, and the trail at this point was empty. Around 2:30, we came out of the forest and had to cross another drainage. This was the only river where both Creighton and I took our shoes off and crossed the stream. The water was about knee high. We got our shoes and socks back on and began climbing up another ridge, heading to Bald mountain. Another great stretch of hiking, saw more people, and the open areas of the ridge (the "bald" areas) had beautiful wildflowers and views of Hood if you looked behind you. Around 4, we were at a major trail junction. This was the first junction with wilderness permits, so I started filling one out. We had turned off the PCT before Ramona Falls, but it meets back here. And while filling out the permit, a woman walked up from the PCT. When I asked her where she was heading she said, "Canada." Sniper (her trail name, and thats the only name she gave us) started on April 20th hiking north from Mexico on the Pacific Crest Trail. I was so enthralled and inspired by her feat. She has been walking for 130 days (I looked up on a website).
We took off after a couple of minutes, and I started struggling. The next two hours were uphill and my feet were hurting. We passed throngs of people heading down to there cars. One I remember was a cute woman, who passed me with a beautiful smile. I had slowed my pace a bit, and when I hit a trail junction up near a mountain meadow I turned left when I should have gone right. Soon enough I was bushwhacking a hardly recognizable path. I turned around, and saw Creighton heading my way. We hiked another 30~45 minutes and came to Cairn Basin. I was pretty tired since we had hiked about 19 miles in 10 hours. I was not walking any more that day. We set up camp, had a great dinner, hung our food, watched the sun fade into the west, and toasted to 52 weeks. I was so glad to have Creighton with me. He was there almost 6 years ago on my first backpacking trip, when as his co-leader I knew less than our kids and was less prepared than they were. He was very generous in his praise, and if darkness hadn't descended, he would have seen me welling up after his kind words. We were in our tents by 10 pm. I was asleep almost immediately.
The next morning we were up at 6 and walking by 7:15 am. The morning was great, until we hit a trail closed sign. The sign read, "8/27/2011 The trail is closed due to wildfires." I had an English teacher with me and we both felt that the sign meant the trail was closed on 8/27. Therefore, on 8/28, the trail was open. We kept moving. We did not pass any wildfires, but we could smell them. A little later in the morning, we could see the plumes of smoke back where we had come from. It was encouraging that we saw more people on the trail. Most were still in their camps, but they were there, so I did not feel like we had done anything wrong.
By 10 am, we had hit the Elliot Glacier drainage. Here a bridge was washed out in 2006, and the route now takes you up a ridge and over the glacier and back down the Cooper Spur. Creighton and I did not realize this was the glacier crossing and instead hiked down the ridge and climbed up the other. It sounds easy, but it was brutal. I tore a huge hole in my shorts as I was rock glissading. I also have some good torn up knuckles as those got to work as my brakes. We got so dusty, but we got down. The river crossing was easy enough, and the climb up was easy, but only by comparison to what we just did. We got back on the trail and soon found a fresh water spring. We were ready for a break.
We had snacks, drank lots of cold amazingly good water, and chatted with day hikers coming up the trail. One of which was that same cute girl with the smile I saw the day before. She remembered us, and we had a nice chat. She was impressed by our Elliot crossing story and laughed at our torn skin and shorts. We started walking at 1 pm, and we began climbing to the high point of the whole trail. This was another fantastic section. Creighton and I were alone on the trail (the day hikers were taking a trail up to the Cooper Spur). There were some snow field crosses that were easy in the warmer part of the day, and Mt. Hood appeared to be so close.
The rest of the day was good. We came around Gnarly ridge, and dropped down into another river crossing. At this point, my feet were killing me. So we stayed at the Newton Creek for a break, I took off my boots and socks and soaked my feet in the creek. I had a fresh pair of socks that I was going to put on when we got going again. We took off after a decent break and were walking by 4:15 pm. At 6:15 pm, my feet were hurting again, but the river soak had bought me some time. Around 7 pm, we were at the White River, the last crossing before a 2 mile walk back to the lodge. As I began the cross, I stepped on a rock that rolled away under my weight. I was able to use my poles to catch myself, but I had soaking wet boots. Taking a brief break on the other side, I also discovered that I broke one of my trekking poles.
It was a fitting state of affairs. I was 2 miles from finishing the loop. I was 2 miles from the end of a year long goal. My feet were in so much pain, they were soaked, one of my poles had broken, and I was left with a two mile climb to my car. For the first half mile, the trail was lined with black huckleberry bushes. I told myself, don't try to hike up just walk to the next berry bush. The timberline trail hits the PCT on the ridge above White River. The next mile was a steady climb, but the trail was sandy. The sand was fine and loose, so I was sliding back a little with each step. The last half mile was fairly gradual in its grade, as it loops around to the lodge. It was getting dark, but I did not need a headlamp. I completed the loop at 8:30 pm. I hiked for over 13 hours.
Orchid: Lots of them on this hike. Here are a few, the walk around Yocum, the sunset on Saturday, the PCT thru-hiker, the hike on the east side.
Onion: The three waves of bug attacks which lasted a total of about 3 hours on Saturday evening: first black flies, then biting gnats, and lastly mosquitoes.
Picture:
Google Map
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