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30 miles of hiking • 5500' elevation gain • 3 nights

Awesome restorative trip into Bull of the Woods. It poured rain halfway into the first day until the morning of day three. My feet may have never dried out, but we saw some beautiful wilderness, witnessed the recent fire's destruction first hand, and finally had a dry night with a fire on night three.

Go now and see the bear grass and rhododendrons—they are seriously in bloom now. More bear grass than I've ever seen.

Staticmap?size=254x125&zoom=4&maptype=terrain&markers=icon:http%3a%2f%2fwenthiking.com%2fimages%2fmarkersmall.png&key=aizasydt2ewyqnn42qqnrpazuysi2dtyerccchw&center=44.8828,-122 The entire trail was lined with bear grass and rhododendrons. After missing the third creek crossing, we stumbled across the most amazing forest scene I may have ever seen. Thousands of bear grass blooms, everywhere. Scenic Elk Lake. Pouring rain. View from the tarp. Our night. Day Two. Still raining. Twin Lakes basin. Rain. Our view from the tarp at Upper Twin Lake. It's still raining, but look, sun! During a brief respit from the rain, a photo of the lake. Day Three. Not raining! My camera got too wet and broke, so the rest of the photos are from my iPhone. Real or fake morels? First real glimpse of the Mother Lode fire. Finally getting sunny, with our day's hike laid out before us. Beautiful. View of Mt Jefferson. Womp womp womp. Looking back at some of the fire. View of Mt Hood. Womp womp womp. The forest on the slope south of Welcome Lakes. This seemed to be one of the most scorched areas. As bad as the forest is (and wind in the forecast), we decided to descend past Welcome Lakes and camp low to avoid deadfall. Beauty in the destruction. Camp on night three. Finally real camping. The only photo of the creek I took unfortunately. I spent way too much time fishing and basking in the sun to take photos. Day Four.

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Comments

Mike Bullington, Chris, Mileage Mike, and jon heart this trip.
1

jon
June 25, 2012

Great job guys. I wish I could have met up for at least one of the days you were out there!

P1120523

Jon Sommerville
July 7, 2012

Looks like that fire on the third night was big enough to make up for the other two wet nights.

Kaiuhl-2015

Kyle Meyer
July 9, 2012

We definitely weren't messing around on the only dry opportunity for fire.

Tomorrow—bunk?