12.5 miles of hiking • 5000' elevation gain •
Left Portland on Friday at 3:45pm, arriving at the Devil's Lake TH / campground shortly before 8pm. We were lucky enough to get the last half campsite. (Thanks again to the wonderful folks who were gracious enough to share!) Despite the cool night temperatures, it hasn't gotten cold enough to frost, so the mosquitos were out in force. I think I got about a dozen bites while quickly setting up the tent while there was still a bit of light left in the sky.
We started off Saturday morning with breakfast and coffee in the parking lot before heading up the trail at about 7:40am. Conditions were ok. Weather was great, but the area is affected by smoke from the Waterfalls 2 fire in the Warm Springs area. After following all the other "ants" up the hill, we were at the top by about 1pm. The snow field at the summit has a snow bridge close the the edge, where the trail approaches the summit. We saw one child and a dog fall through (on separate occasions), because they were too close to the edge. Luckily the water is shallow, but I would imagine that it would make for a chilly hike back down. We spent a little over an hour at the top, where we hiked the trail around to the real summit.
Ater traversing the snowfield back to the trail, we headed back down the mountain, arriving at the parking lot 3 hours later at 5:30pm.
Photos coming soon...
