13 miles of hiking • 3250' elevation gain • 1 night
Overnight backpack w/ Carissa to Elk Meadows. Sunny, beautiful fall Saturday. Got to the trailhead around 10:30 and there were about 10 cars and many dayhikers w/ dogs enjoying the weather. About an inch of scattered snow on the trail still and some in the meadows, but most was melting out in the sun. Set up camp in the spot behind the shelter and attempted a Gnarl Ridge ascent but hit snow about a half mile up and thought better of it since it was getting late. Returned to camp and watched the sun set on the mountain. About 39 degrees at night. Saw several shooting stars above Hood and enjoyed the interesting phenomenon of Portland back-lighting the mountain from this vantage point.
The next day we decided to reattempt the Gnarl Ridge climb and get to Lamberson Butte. Carissa said, "I don't want to do 9 miles today!" It seems I always take her on some crazy adventure hikes where we do more miles than she feels comfortable with. Who knew? I assured her it woud be more like 5 or 6. We set off up the trail where we saw some big elk prints. After climbing up up and up we reached the junction of the T-Trail. As we climbed, we ran into more and more snow. Near the treeline there was about 10-12 inches. Saw several other couples on the way up and followed tracks in the snow of some Timberline Trail backpackers. They were calling it quits about halfway around b/c of the snow. Hood looked great in its brand new snow cloak, and we enjoyed this rare snowy closeup for awhile as the wind howled around the twisted old pines.
We descended the now slushy snow trail back to the Gnarl Ridge junction and decided to return via Newton Creek trail. Down, down, down into the giant canyon we were just looking down into an hour earlier. After the sketchy crossing of Newton Creek and the tricky rope climb up the bank, we were finally on our way up to meet Newton Creek trail. There are some really amazing old trees on the high point of this trail. Massive thick silver trunks. There is also some crazy exposure up there for you agoraphobes (my wife) as you walk the narrow ridgetop for about 50 yards or so.
Made our way back down, thankful to be on the easiest section of trail all day. Returned to the car around 5:10pm. "Good news honey! Only 8.5 miles today!" Headed off to Parkdale to try some Solera beer. Pretty good stuff. Back to PDX by 8:30pm.
