We see each other a few times a year, we catch up, and we appreciate each others quiet company. We take a few hours to reconnect, and I head back to my world and Elk Meadows resumes its quiet contentment on the side of a beautiful mountain. The rivers run, the snow deepens, and everything is right.
I don’t often camp out at Elk Meadows in the winter – I’d love to, don’t get me wrong, but unfortunately the trailhead is snowed in this time of year, and the only parking area nearby is day-use only… and it’s well frequented enough that I worry about getting towed instead of just ticketed. Day trips are the name of the game in the winter.
Which is a bit of a bummer… but it means that I don’t stay overnight, and drive home… which also means that I can get dinners on the drive back. At… ohh, say the Timberline Lodge, as a specific example relevant to tonight’s story.
I… uhh…
I hiked Elk Meadows. And then had dinner at the Timberline Lodge.
That’s basically it. The rest, as they say, are just details.
One interesting detail, though… I ran into a guy backpacking! Right on the river… definitely an interesting spot, but it was neat to run into someone else snow camping. Not something I see particularly often, which made it a bit memorable.
As the title subtly alludes to… the Timberline Trail going West from the Timberline Lodge, on Mt. Hood, doesn’t really exist in the winter.
I wasn’t aware of that fact, before suggesting this hike.
Now, however, since crossing two terrain parks and who knows how many ski runs… well, now I know. It sticks in your memory. Feels strange, looking both ways and then sprinting across a ski run… and I felt bad, even after multiple ski patrol folks told us that it was totally okay, since I felt like I was just messing up the snow for everyone.
I’m getting ahead of myself. On Friday, I went hiking with some friends!
We’d been debating where to go, but ended up sticking with the tried-and-true tactic for winter: Head toward Mt. Hood, get some elevation, and hike on the snow. Elk Meadows hadn’t been particularly passable the last time I’d been up, and Mirror Lake had already been done, so… where to? I haven’t been to Paradise Park before, and it’s got a few good intermediary destinations, so up we headed!
The drive was easy; stopping at a friend’s house to borrow some snowshoes (he’d planned on joining us, but was feeling under the weather), and grabbing a baguette sandwich for our lunching pleasure, didn’t delay us anything – we parked pretty easily, without stress or mess or even waking up too early.
We geared up, headed in, and… couldn’t find the trail.
I’d originally targeted the route I normally take – Go up a little bit, then connect to the climbers trail and connect over to the timberline trail. But with the snow… I mean, it’s a popular trail, right?? I expected at least some signs to be visible, if not a fully packed down trail!
But man… it just wasn’t there.
We tried circling the lodge, looking for a different trailhead. We tried asking a ski patrol member about details. We tried following GPS, looking for the evident paths through the trees. We tried following my memory of landmarks, angling toward buildings and cell phone towers.
In the end, we finally got out of the bounds of the resort. If we were on trail though, I couldn’t really say… the GPS said we were close, but… man, who knows? All I knew was that it was beautiful, and the weather was stunning. The photos came out well, but even they don’t quite do it justice… the stark bleakness of the landscape, contrasted with the bright green of the trees and the blue skies, was excellent.
We went West as long as we could, until we hit an insurmountable barrier – Little ZigZag canyon. It’s usually a quick and easy traverse – down and back up. But with the snow, a cornice had formed on the far rim, a cornice that we weren’t remotely prepared to navigate.
(Ed Note: For those not versed in mountaineering speak, a “Cornice” is a lip of ice that forms over the any sharp(ish) ledge where wind regularly blows. They can be beautiful, but are also a very real hazard for snow travel, since they can break off unexpectedly… either dropping someone standing on top, or triggering a slide that can hit or bury people below. Check out the link here for more info:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_cornice)
Zag
With that barrier ahead of us, we changed course and headed upward, toward the Silcox hut at the bottom of the Palmer Glacier. We didn’t really have a goal in mind, just the enjoyment of being up on the mountain… so up seemed as good a direction as any.
I don’t really have much else to add here. You know the story about hiking – we walked, we chatted, we stopped to take photos, and we had a grand old time. Hung out with some ravens, chatted with the ski patrol folks as they shut down the lift and headed down.
We stopped in at the Timberline Lodge after our adventure wrapped up – The Ram’s Head is one of my favorite places to get an after-hiking meal, and we didn’t find it wanting. Huge glasses of cocoa, and a skillet full of meatballs, fortified us for the beautiful sunset drive home…
Wednesday, 10-Nov-2021 through Monday, 15-Nov-2021
My friends came to visit!
Two weekends in a row… I’m the most social of all the social butterflies, it seems!
And honestly, I’m so thankful for it. 2021 was, for mas as for everyone, a challenging year. It’d been a year of huge personal growth, and excellent introspection, but at my core I’m still a social creature. Self-reflection is only a part of the growth cycle… sharing those insights, and getting other people’s input, is just as important to someone’s growth.
So when Daniel and Erin asked if they could come to visit the weekend after Dillon and Liz’s wedding… well, I couldn’t say yes fast enough!
Saturday, 13-Nov-2021
After the day of hiking in the rain, we were pretty excited for a slightly drier walk in the woods on Saturday. Not that there’s anything wrong with hiking in the rain… but… you know. Warmer. Drier. Less sticky during the drive home.
With the weather looking a bit gloomy again in the gorge, but with clear skies to the East of Mt. Hood, our destination was obvious… One of my favorite hikes of the last few years, Elk Meadows!
It was a bit weird, to be honest, thinking of sharing this hike with friends. I’d done it some many times solo that it felt strange to be chatting as we walked… I think the last time I hiked it with someone else was back in June or July of 2020 when I’d first met Laurel.
But, as with everything else this weekend, the change was glorious and hugely appreciated. I love getting to share my passions with other people, and this was definitely no exception – hearing their exclamations as we turned a bend and Mt. Hood came into view for the first time was amazing, and helped me relive the joy of my own first few times seeing the views.
Breakfast bagels were delicious, the drive was beautiful, the trail was amazing, the river crossings were entertaining, and the meadow itself was just as welcoming as I’ve always found it to be.
The wildlife was almost more welcoming than I’d come to expect. The Grey Jay’s of Mt. Hood and I have come to know each other pretty well, but I wasn’t sure what their opinion of Daniel and Erin would be…
Turns out, I didn’t have to worry one iota – the Jay’s absolutely adored them both, and we ended up spending… ohh, probably an hour? Doing photoshoots and handing out offerings of peanuts to the tiny little buggers. it was awesome, cute, and we even got to watch Daniel somehow survive a bird landing on his head!
It was still pretty early in the day after our wildlife photo session, and we were all feeling pretty energetic with the sun high and the breeze warm. A quick tour of the meadow didn’t burn out our remaining energy, so upward and onward we went onto the Bluegrass trail.
It’d been a while since I’d explored the Bluegrass ridge, and I was optimistic that we’d be able to get some good views of the various cascade volcanoes from the top… the day was clear, after all, and the morning had burned off most of the remaining clouds.
It was cold, and windy, and rather challenging terrain as we explored. With friends though, it’s always a bit easier and we made great progress as the day went on. The views didn’t quite ever materialize, and the day did start getting quite a bit colder as it went on… so we took the main trail back in short order, finding ourselves back on the road just a bit before sunset.
Sunset didn’t see us on the road home, though… instead, we made our way up to the Timberline lodge!
Bringing my Mom out to the lodge for brunch had reminded me just how amazing the Timberline Lodge was… and having gone probably an entire year without visiting their restaurant had left me with enough of a craving that a single meal couldn’t be expected to quench it.
There wasn’t too much on the menu at the Ram’s Head, though, and we ended up going fairly simple – I got an amazing tomato soup for myself! It ended up being quite a bit more filling than expected, and easily tided us over until we got back into town.
