8 miles of hiking • 2750' elevation gain •
Another fantastic day on Mt. Hood!
The forecast on Saturday left open the possibility of rain and thunderstorms, so we left the trailhead, with a watchful eye to the sky. As luck would have it, there was only one good and extremely short down pour the entire day; and it occured right after we had ducked into the the Cooper Spur shelter.
After the rain ended, we made a quick exit and headed up to the top of Cooper Spur. The trail is easy to find most of the way up, but at one point through the switchbacks, ended into a snowfield. From that point until the tent shelters before the traverse, it was a open hike up the boulder and scree fields. The traverse and top of Cooper Spur were quite windy. Probably 50mph+ gusts. Visibility was limited due to what we assumed was smoke from the fires in Southeastern Oregon. However what we could see was still spectactular; the east face of Mt. Hood, Cloud Cap, roped climbing teams on Eliot Glacier.
After a short while at the top, we headed back down, just in time to pass the day hike crowds heading up. The sun finally came out when we were back on the Timberline Trail and almost back to the TH.
Note about travel time to the TH: We left the Portland area at about 7:30am and finally got on the trail at 10am. I still a relative newbie to the Pacific NW, so I didn't really plan for the drive to the TH to take so long. So for future reference, hikes on the east side of Hood, allow 2.5 hours travel time to TH...
