10.1 miles of hiking • 2500' elevation gain •
Was initially going to go early in the day, but I had a friend who offered to come with who couldn't leave Portland until 2:00 pm.
We knew we weren't going to be able to drive the road, as it is rumored to be one of the worst forest roads in existence. At a friends suggestion of where the road gets bad, we opted to just park at the junction in a turnout. We got on the "road" around 4 pm in the heat of the day and trudged up.
Eventually we hit the trailhead, and we were excited to finally be on trail instead of road walking.
Fantastic views all around! I never want to go up via grouse vista again. Ed's trail was so scenic, right from the start. We enjoyed the scrambly sections, but vowed to not take Ed's trail back to avoid going down them.
We didn't linger on top very long, as we didn't want to be headlamping it out. The return trip was super quick, and we watched the sun start to set from the parking lot. We hustled down following a subaru, tailing it almost the whole way down as our speed matched the speed in which it could drive the road. Almost total solitude on the trail.
