7.8 miles of hiking • 1000' elevation gain • 1 night
Planned to do Paradise Park on Hood, but the mountain was in a cloud of smoke yesterday - so it was a plan B which worked nice. Got to the viewpoint @2400' then decided to backtrack to the river and camp on waterfront. Lots of great campsites to choose from, and no one else camping that night. There were a lot of ripe red huckleberries. Old growth forest along Salmon River is impressive.
As soon as it got dark, Pepper went into the river and tried to hunt crawdads (there were none, but she remembered our night "fishing" 2 weeks back on Veda Lake). And she used to hate water, not so long ago! Well, she found mice instead around the camp and had her share of fun. In the morning, I discovered I set up tent just 2 feet from yellowjacket nest (found out when I broke the camp and put some stuff almost on top of them) - they got disturbed and circled us but didn't sting.
Overall, it was nice, quiet, and uncrowded hike.
JM
August 23, 2013
Great shot of the sky! Re: Yellowjackets, my friends and I disturbed a nest on a bushwhack on the Timberline Trail. We got stung 9 times between the three of us! Not fun! Love this trail, though.