PCT North from Barlow Pass to Almost Timberline Lodge

10.4 miles of hiking • 2000' elevation gain •

Wanting to get away from the heat, as much as possible, we headed out towards Mt. Hood and the higher elevations. I also wanted to see if we could meet some PCT through hikers (and hand out some Oreo cookies). So we headed out to the parking lot at Barlow Pass, where the PCT passes through. There weren't many cars parked at the Th, and there weren't a huge number of hikers on the trail, which was nice!

We were very pleased to meet 8 PCT through hikers during our entire hike! We were somewhat surprised that 3 of these through hikers were south bounders, and expected to finish in the October/November time frame! We wish them all a safe journey with the hot dry weather and bad fire season!

We didn't go all the way to Timberline as we didn't feel like being around the large crowds of tourists! One item of interest was that my wife and I were talking about the possibility of avalanches while viewing the White River canyon. What was amazing is that within 10 seconds an avalanche occurred!!! I included a couple of avalanche pictures!