Tag Archives: hiking on Mt Hood

Oct13

Backpacking Elk Meadows in September

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Saturday and Sunday, 24-Sept-2022 & 25-Sept-2022


Wow… I can’t believe it’s been this long since I’ve gone backpacking up at Elk Meadows. It’s been… what? Since at least 2021… So over a year, from my records. 13 months.

For this being my go-to hike, that’s kind of a long time.

I mean, okay. Granted, I’ve hiked Elk Meadows a ton of times since then. Let’s see… three other times? More than any other hike, by a good margin, so it still counts as a go-to. Just… less backpacking this year, I think. Yeah – four times this year, vs. six last year. But there’s still time, I have faith I’ll get another few in this year.

Anyways I went backpacking at Elk Meadows


It was a lovely weekend – I started off by having brunch at Timberline Lodge, getting a chance to sit down at the Cascade Dining room for their buffet and snacking on some excellent fancy restaurant fare. It was… good… but not great, frankly. COVID’s hit everyone hard, especially the tourism industry, and it felt like the Lodge was still severely understaffed. I was patient though, snacked as I could, and soon enough was parked and heading up the trail to Elk.


The hike was lovely – I went pretty much non-stop, working on my endurance a bit, and pushing to hike a little bit more quickly than I normally would. Not being in a rush, mind you, just… pushing my body a little bit. Exulting in my strength and endurance, and seeing how far I could push those limits.

I made camp in a new campsite for me, since there were folks in my normal ones, and set about exploring the meadow. It was interesting – the meadow was more crowded than I think I’ve ever seen it before, with a grand total of maybe half a dozen people camped around various spots. It was almost loud… not significantly so, of course, and not enough to overwhelm the sounds of nature, but… still. Loud enough that it was noticeable and memorable.

I relaxed.

I ate dinner, read my book, and stargazed.

I slept gloriously, and woke up excellently refreshed.

I explored the meadows again in the morning. Stretching out, warming up the muscles, and appreciating the cool and sunny day.

I finished my book, packed up, and walked back to the car.

It was a good day.



Ohh! One interesting thing of note – My campstove had given me trouble on Middle Sister, if you recall, so I pulled it apart before heading out to Elk Meadows… dissassembled the whole thing, cleaned and rinsed it, and made sure everything was back in its proper place. Works like a charm, now!

Just a reminder to people – You’re always capable of troubleshooting stuff!

Dec29

The first major snow-hike of the Winter!

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Saturday, 18-Dec-2021


Snow!

Snow, Snow, Snow!

I love snow!


I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s an interesting thing worth repeating – In Oregon, the snow level is very much dependent on elevation. When I picked up my coworkers in town, it was a nice (albeit drizzly) morning. Cold, but not that nice crisp-cold… sort of a damp-ish cold. But by the time we all piled out of the car at the trailhead it was crisp, snowy, and gloriously overcast. Little flurries of snow, with the loud “whump” of snow falling off the trees as the day got warmer.

Portland itself is just about sea level, as is Wilsonville, both being just about 100ft above sea level. Our destination for the day, however, was just below 3,500ft elevation… and the snow level met us at just about 2,500ft during our drive up.

Ohh, right. What was our destination? Mirror Lake!!


I know, I know, it’s not the most exciting or intense hike out there… but you know what? This was the first time that we’d all gotten to hike together, it was the first real snow-hike of the year, and we were stuffing four people into the Mustang. So… you know, Hopefully a little understandable that we didn’t want to go too far or too long.

First off – why the Mustang? Well, my friends had all just moved to Portland earlier this year – so none of them had snow tires, or chains, for their cars. We debated it, but since two of the party were rather small we decided that it’d be simplest to let me drive… I’ve got solid Oregon-snow driving experience, already have chains for the car, and I’ve become quite comfortable driving the Mustang through the sometimes challenging terrain around Mt. Hood.

I mean, that… and I just really like driving the Mustang!



The trailhead was surprisingly empty when we parked and started into the woods… I’ve come to expect this trail to be packed nearly year-round, so this was an absolutely lovely happenstance. On a Saturday, no less! I expect that it’s from the skiing… I have a feeling that all the drifting snow would make for an excellent powder day, so it’s definitely understandable that everyone would be out enjoying the early-season pow-pow days.


We hiked in. We ate lunch at the lake (I brought beef stew!) and we even fed the birds a bit! I adore seeing peoples faces the first time they have a Jay land on their hand… There’s someone just so wholesome about seeing someone take a full “disney princess” moment, you know?



Hiking was excellent – we walked, chatted, enjoyed the views, and had ourselves an excellent time. The snow was quiet, the air was crisp, and there was just enough of a drizzle or rain / snow mixture to keep us happy to be moving.

A very good day, indeed.





As a bonus – I really love the “looking up into the canopy” picture I took… especially because, for some reason, all I can see is Sasquatch walking. Do you see it now?

Dec11

Hiking to little Zig Zag canyon, on mount Hood, in the snow!

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Sunday, 11-Nov-2018

Sarah and I have been fighting off colds for the past week, so what we really wanted to do was to just stay home by the fire and play video games. It was a perfectly beautiful day though, and a few inches of snow had fallen on Mt. Hood earlier in the week… way too perfect for us to pass up on.

We drove out fairly early in the morning, aiming to get on the trail before the day got too late – our goal wasn’t to get an alpine start, but we were hoping to be able to get some hiking in before the sun got too low down. We didn’t get out quite as early as we’d been hoping, in all honesty, but it was okay because not only did we get to stop at Starbucks for cookies and sandwiches, but we even got two gift cards for our next time, thanks to there being a slight mixup in what we actually ordered. Woo!

Once we arrived, we were able to gear up and get on the trail pretty quickly, though admittedly far slower than poor Ollie was hoping for. The whole time we were getting ready she was anxiously pacing around the car, hating her snow boots and wishing that she was out and running.

Yep, that’s right. Snow boots. For Ollie. It was cold! We didn’t want her little toes to freeze!

Yeah, it was a good idea. It lasted a whole half hour I think, before we finally took them off and let her run crazy. Seriously – Ollie had been running before, but once the boots were off she literally sprinted back and forth along the trail… turns out, dogs are well adapted to running on snow and ice, and we’d been worrying pretty needlessly.

Anyways, it was gorgeous! A perfectly blue sky, crisp snow, and barely any other folks hiking.

We made it to our goal of having a quick lunch on a rock a bit past the far edge of little ZigZag canyon with time to spare before we had to turn around, so after having some snacks we took the chance to play in the snow! Ollie, of course, loved every second of it – we played fetch, Sarah and I had a snowball fight, and I even climbed around on one of the boulders for a little bit.

It was lovely – a good hike to get out of the city for a few hours. We had a lovely relaxing drive home, which of course included a quick stop at a coffee shop, a snack at Dairy Queen, and a spectacular sunset as we rode back into Portland.