Day 19: So Long Mt. Hood

PCT Mile 2098 – 2120

Miles Hiked = 22

I enjoyed my zero day yesterday at Timberline Lodge below Mt. Hood. But it’s time to get back on the trail and finish Oregon. I have about 46 miles to Cascade Locks which is a small town along the Columbia River. There the PCT crosses over the Bridge of Gods to enter Washington state. My plan is to reach Cascade Locks in two days.

I left Timberline Lodge at 6am this morning. The PCT crosses above the lodge so it only took five minutes or so to get back on the trail. It was an overcast morning with high clouds.

I soon had a view of Mt. Hood in the glow of the morning light.

The PCT winds it’s way clockwise from the southern face of Mt. Hood where the Timberline Lodge is located to the western and then northwestern sides. There are many glaciers on Mt. Hood and each seems to have its own gully with glacial streams flowing down the mountain. I would cross several today.

I had to cross several of the streams via “log bridges”. Sometimes these are a little hairy-scary. These two were easy.

At one point I had a nice view looking back south at Mt. Jefferson.

After almost ten miles of hiking I passed Ramona Falls. There were a lot of day-hikers visiting the Falls because of a nearby road and trailhead.

Ramona Falls

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0jQ870T15RMasv3NE6ZH-lxKw#Rhododendron

As I continued my hike I enjoyed several nice views of Mt. Hood as I worked my way around the western side of the mountain.

Mt. Hood

Last Labor Day (2020), there was a historic windstorm on the western side of Mt. Hood that caused extensive damage and blew down tens of thousands of trees. The winds also fueled wildfires across the Cascades. The Timberline Trail that circumnavigates Mt. Hood as well as the PCT were severely damaged with thousands of downed trees blocking these trails. Forest Service crews cleared as many of these downed trees as possible before winter arrived last year and just within the last few weeks cleared the majority of the remaining downed trees. There was evidence as I walked along the trail.

Later that afternoon I reached a natural spring and collected water for the night. And then I set up my tent, cooked my dinner (boiled water) and settled in for the night.

Tomorrow would be my last day hiking in Oregon and I was expecting it to be a good one. Hint: that was a tease.

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