7 miles of hiking • 2750' elevation gain • 1 night
A friend of mine asked me to join her on this hike and I jumped at the chance to get up on the East side of Mt. Hood for a hike. I've heard this one was a lot of fun and we were not disappointed!
We headed out on Wednesday and parked our vehicles by the Cloud Cap Inn, where I hear the Crag Rats use it as a SAR base during SAR operations. The parking lot has a perfect view of Mt. Hood and I slept in the bed of my truck with my bivy sack and looked at the stars for a while. I even saw a couple shooting stars! It was so warm up there, I had to lose some layers halfway through the night because my 15 degree sleeping bag was a wee bit too warm.
We got up early Thursday morning and after breakfast and packing up our car camping stuff, we hit the trail shortly after 8a. There was one other fellow there doing a day hike, and another fellow with snow blades and his dog planning to do some snow blading. Otherwise, there wasn't anyone else up there.
We made good time getting up to where the snow fields started (just before the shelter) and that's where the fun began. I brought my microspikes with me and used them to create a trail for my hiking partner. We continued up past the shelter, crossing snow fields every so often and following the zigs and zags of the trail as best as we could. We got to about 500ft from the top of Cooper Spur before finally turning around. The trail was buried under a huge snowfield and we determined it really wasn't safe to continue. My motto is "Safety first. I don't want to be listed on the news as an 'experienced hiker'. :)".
I will add that part way up we found a rock that was COVERED in various kinds of scat. It was almost like it was an outhouse for the local animals. I took a few pictures and if anyone has any ideas of what kind of animal created the scat, please let me know! It was so fascinating and I forgot to take a picture of the rock to show how covered it was.
Even though we didn't go all the way to the top, the views were stunning. At one point I was just quietly looking at the Mountain and taking it all in, and the next thing I know I hear the glacier moving. Super cool!!! I almost thought there was going to be an avalanche...we had heard one the night before but weren't able to see it.
We stopped at the shelter on the way down for a late lunch. That's a pretty cool place. When we left the shelter, we got turned around a bit with the snowfields and started unknowingly down the Tilly Jane Trail. We figured it out soon enough after consulting the map, my GPS and my iPhone AllTrails app. It was confirmed by asking a couple of hikers we saw if they had come from Cloud Cap and we got back on the right track. We lost the trail again shortly after that and there were some less than helpful snowboarders too busy with building a jump than to help a couple of ladies out on finding the trail. I found it while my hiking partner was trying to get a straight answer out of the snowboarders. After that, we hit the area of the trail where I feel like I'm on the moon with all the ash and moon-like rocks. It was easy going after that with just a couple more snowfields to cross before getting back onto the trail for good.
We made it back to the trailhead a little after 3p and headed home to Portland.
Lessons learned: 1) Green Trails maps suck. There were more trails than on the map and it was difficult to find what we were looking at in the detail we needed. I think I need to look at other map options. 2) Listen to your gut. I listened to my gut after we went down the Tilly Jane Trail and I realized it didn't look familiar. It sucked having to go back up the hill, but in the end we got where we were supposed to be. It wouldn't have been a bad thing to go that way, it just would have added a half mile to our return hike as both trails end close to each other. Stopping and looking around and consulting your map and/or GPS are always a good thing if you aren't sure of where you are. 3) I really need to learn how to navigate better in the snow and in general. I need to look into taking a detailed class on map, compass and navigation. 4) I really, really loved going up there. I've shied away from mountain hikes where you are having to do trail finding and whatnot. I think I am going to do this more often, as the weather permits and as my skill level grows.
All in all, a great experience and I might go back in August after more of the snow melts to try it again!
