I'd lived in Oregon for 15 yrs and have done parts of this trail as a series of day hikes with the Mazamas, staying in the Mazama Lodge and being driven to trailheads over a Labor Day weekend, which was fun, but I always swore I'd return to backpack it. After circumnavigating Glacier Peak a few weeks ago, I asked my partner Nate if he'd like to see my old stomping grounds. We opted for a 3-day trip, vs the standard 4-day, on account of no vacation time left and a storm forecast for Sunday.

We chose to go CW from Top Spur TH, logging 43.4 miles and almost exactly 10,000ft of elevation gain. We'd originally planned on a 14.5mi day, a 17mi day and a 10.6mi day that included a night at Paradise Park. However, with the Sunday forecast getting worse (going from .12" of rain to .4"), we decided to skip Paradise (which was forecast to have 40mph winds overnight) and do an extra 5 miles Saturday and a short day today.

Day 1: Top Spur to camps beyond Cooper Spur at 7300ft. We ended up doing 15mi and camping by water off the trail about .75mi past Cooper Spur Shelter. Top Spur has a lot of roots and rocks that were fine in dry weather but slippery as heck coming back in the rain. Our elevation gain was 5100 this day. The hike through Cairn Basin and Elk Cove was as pretty as I'd remembered, with alpine meadows and mountain views all the way.

The burn area was hot, exposed and monotonous, but I found the best berries left on this section. Water was plentiful except in the burn area. We did not run into any wasp's nests (as we had on my long-ago Mazama trip). Lots of people on the trail - this is not one you'll have to yourself - including many trail runners.

The Coe Branch was a rock-hop for Nate at 6'2", but I donned Crocs and waded across - about knee deep on me at 5'3". No worries there. The Eliot Branch was a bigger challenge. The ropes are great - everyone was polite and waited until the previous group was down and out of the fall line. The crossing is just downstream of the ropes, on a bundle of 3 logs tied together. The water was running just under the logs; they were wet and slippery, but it was doable. I followed a group of 4 ladies who waited for me to cross before heading up to Cloud Cap. (Thank you!). Nate crossed later, but I thought he'd gone ahead. He did not find the log bundle, so he had a more challenging time hopping a couple boulders and a poorly-anchored log.

From there, it was up, up, up some sandy, dusty switchbacks to Cloud Cap, where we found water and bathroom. After a quick rest, we headed up toward Cooper Spur. It was hot, dusty and exposed at 3pm. We stayed on the Timberline Trail and found a campsite near a creek about 1/2mi shy of where we'd planned to camp, leaving us in for a 17.5mi Saturday. Or so we thought...

Day 2: Here the spectacular views of Mt. Hood started - the Eliot Glacier, the Newton-Clark Glacier and all the waterfalls and canyons carved into and out of the glacial moraines.

After enjoying a beautiful, smoky sunrise that turned the whole landscape orange, we started at 8am, thinking we'd be in camp around 4... There's not much snow on the mountain aside from these glaciers, but the rock colors are spectacular. We heard some big rockfall (or the Eliot Glacier collapsing) off the mountain. Even in the river valleys, the expansive views of Mt. Hood are impressive.

Newton Creek wasn't a bad crossing, Heather Creek was a little bit interesting: I crossed not too far from where it becomes a 40ft rushing waterfall and then shimmied around a big boulder on the opposite muddy bank, also a few feet from the waterfall, to regain the trail.

The traverse across Mount Hood Meadows was probably my least favorite part of the day. Though I'm a sucker for an alpine meadow, the ski equipment and parking lots reminded me that I wasn't far from civilization. (I kept wanting to detour to a parking lot to look for a coffee concession :-D)

The White River crossing wasn't bad either - there were 2 crossings, both were rock hops with a trekking pole and a hand from Nate on the other side. Then the uphill slog to Timberline Lodge. I didn't find it terrible, though it was sandy in parts. At the lodge, we used the bathroom, got water and headed west.

That's where we got the weather report that spurred us on an extra 5mi and had us skip Paradise Park and stay on the PCT. It also meant we couldn't stop to enjoy the lodge, have a fancy coffee and such. With the weather forecast, we did think about getting a room and hitching to Govt Camp and then Lost Creek Campground the next day, but the big No Vacancy sign set us straight and, had that not been the case, the $400 price tag might have given us pause. So..., the 6.5-mile stretch we started at 3:30 became an 11+mile stretch that took us down to the Sandy River and a dark, sad campsite next to a creek right above the river. There was already a tent in the neighboring site, but we never saw the people in it or their lights. We got in at about 8pm - I was mentally and physically fried after the 22mi, 3800ft of gain and maybe more importantly, 7000ft of downhill. I was spitting and cussing, and if I'd had to walk any farther, I might have legit started crying. But still, I apologize for being a loud, bad neighbor to whoever was in that white tent. We settled in with the alarm set for 5am, slept poorly, and set out under murky skies to cross the Sandy.

Day 3: We crossed the Sandy by headlamp, and it wasn't too bad. We both waded across, just over my knees, and lower shins on Nate. Very cold!!!

The rain began in earnest as we climbed up, staying on the Timberline Trail. I would only recommend this trail in perfect weather. We could have taken the lovely PCT, but we didn't want to lose and gain more elevation. We probably only saved ourselves a few hundred feet though, and it stunk! The trail, after the saddle, keeps going uphill as it traverses toward the Muddy Fork crossing. By now, it was pouring (Meadows rain gauge said .4" today), plus the wet veg swiping at our legs, and we felt like we were going through a car wash! The tread is poor in places, with a tunnel of fallen trees, most of which were easy to get under or over, or they had workarounds. There were a couple bad washouts where we could grab roots or rocks to get down, but for less experienced hikers, they would have been dangerous.

The Muddy Fork was a 2-crossing rock hop with a hand from Nate on the other side. We got across around 8am, during the sweet-spot timeframe, before puddles began pooling and rivulets started running on the trails, an indicator that the rivers would start rising.

After that, it was a pretty easy few hundred feet up to another saddle, and a mile-long overlap with the trail we'd used to come in, plus a 1/2mi rocky, rooty lollipop stick to the Top Spur TH and back to our cars for a 6.8mi, 1200ft day.

We were happy to stop for coffee in Sandy - for fall drinks of choice, and then at a delicious taco stand in a parking lot off 122nd and Powell. Not the best part of Portland, but the food was delish and we were so wet, dirty and smelly, no one gave us a second glance. Another cool circumnav in the books!

I did the trail as an overnight, clockwise. Sharing my experience as I didn’t find many 2-day reports to use for planning.  

TL;DR: CW from Timberline Lodge, camp at Elk Cove (22.1 mi on the Timberline trail). Day 2 was rough, but all in all it was good timing for water crossings and worked out well for me. (Partially because I lucked out with a bit of cloud cover on day 2). 

Day 1:  Good footing, gentle grade, not much sun exposure.

I took the Paradise Loop. It’s beautiful. If you take the 2nd junction to the loop heading CW, it only add a few tenths of a mile and I don’t think much elevation gain.

I’d read some fairly recent reports that the section of the TT north of Ramona Falls was still pretty hairy from the washout a few years back, so I took the Ramona Falls trail to PCT bypass. This is, if my math is right, about a mile a half shorter, with 500’ more elevation gain. I’ll note that there are some recent crossing reports for the Muddy River on this part of the TT, so some people are not bypassing it.

I got a flickering one to two bars of cell reception on the west side of Elk Cove, which I used to book a hotel room for the next night when I decided to definitely go for finishing on day 2.

Day 2: Slower footing, a lot more sun exposure.

I hit Coe Branch and Eliot Branch by mid-morning and both crossings were fine.

There are about 3 miles above treeline just south of Cloud Cap, which start with some uphill in sand if you’re heading south. (During which I bitterly remembered all of the trip reports that talked about two miles of uphill in sand going CW to Timberline Lodge. No one had mentally prepared me for this uphill in sand!) After you come back to the treeline, the footing is sandy at times but generally pretty firm until the White River wash, and there are some miles without much elevation change. And there’s some tree cover but still a fair amount of sun exposure in this stretch.

The White River wash takes a while to get across. It’s about a quarter of a mile wide. I saw someone say “you do not want to do this in the dark” and I second the motion. There are cairns to follow across but it can still be a little tough to find your way, and you do want to follow the trail/cairns as that will help you find the feasible places to cross the channels.

Then the much ballyhooed “two miles uphill in the sand” to get back to the lodge. I thought it was not as bad as advertised, but that was partially because I was hiking late enough in the day that it was starting to cool down. The first half mile is sandy but fairly firm footing uphill in trees, similar in footing and grade to much of the trail on the southeast side of the mountain. Then when you join back up with the PCT, there is a stretch of outright sand. It is mostly uphill, but much of it is a pretty mild grade. As you approach the Salmon River, maybe 3/4 of a mile or a little more before the lodge, the footing gets firmer. The last 1.5 mi has very little tree cover, so I can definitely see why this section would feel pretty bad at the end of your hike if you hit it during peak sun and temps.

I think that breaking this day 2 into two days could make a nice 3-day/2-night trip that minimizes tough crossings.

Trail obstacles, etc.: With taking the PCT bypass north of Ramona Falls, there were all in all not too many downed trees to contend with, and it was possible to get over/under/around them all without too much trouble. There was not a ton of elevation exposure. I felt the most “whoa, that’s a big drop off” about a mile or so east of the Timberline Lodge, where the trail goes close to the edge of the White River canyon for a little while. Outside of the Eliot embankment (see below), there wasn’t very much that was rocky or steep enough to be a little scrambly, and then only for very small amounts without bad fall exposure.

Water crossings: What I gathered from FarOut reports was that Coe and Eliot were very recently not great to cross in the afternoon/evening. (“Pretty scary”). So I planned my itinerary around hitting those in the morning. With this itinerary, I was able to rock hop or use man-made (or man-placed) log crossings for the most part. The crossings required concentration but did not feel terribly sketchy, and I could usually use my poles for balance. My feet didn’t get wet outside of the questionable decision to refill my water from a small waterfall with a lot of spray, and a bit on my very last crossing (the White River, later in the day). A lot of the rivers were really fast-running, and I was glad I didn’t do this trip earlier in the season. When I could get across on rocks, many of the rocks were only a few inches above water. And the water was pretty close to or touching the bottom of most of the log crossings. 

A few words on the Eliot and its legendary embankment with ropes, which is on the west side:  See the great picture in an earlier trip report from this season. I was carefully following the trail down and then suddenly, there were the ropes. Starting about 20’ higher than I’d imagined. Getting down the embankment with the ropes was do-able. I think I’d prefer going down (with ropes!) over coming up this embankment. 

Snow:  Still some crossings; all were short and fine with poles.

Bugs:  Not too bad, but there were some gnats and biting flies. I got a few bites. I used my headnet when I set up camp and a few other times.

Hiked Timberline CW with 4 others from 8/7-8/10, 3 nights/4 days. We experienced some weather extremes on both sides but it was a lovely experience. Highlights right now are the constant wildflowers, especially on Paradise Park, and lots of ripe blueberries. We camped in Paradise Park (cannot recommend this enough), Elk Cove, and just before Newton Creek, which made our daily mileage 6/15/12/8. 

Campsites: Since we hiked from Thursday-Sunday, we dealt with some large crowds. This is a very popular trail. I recommend not planning to camp at Elk Cove on the weekends unless you arrive before 4 pm. That was our longest day, and at the last second we decided to push on and we got what was clearly a rarely used site, .25 miles down the Elk Cove trail, surrounded by dead trees. We saw others that decided to camp in delicate wildflower meadows, which was sad to see. It's a lovely area, but if you're planning on it, the next campsites in either direction are a couple of miles and it makes it much harder if Elk Cove is full. Similarly, the Newton Creek sites in the trees were claimed by 3 pm. I hiked ahead of my group and set up just after 3 in one of the last spots, and watched a parade of folks hike past looking disappointed as they realized all those spots were taken. The spots by the river are nice, but fully exposed and not ideal when it's hot (which it was). If you want to camp in the popular places, start early and end early.

Water Crossings: We were able to entirely avoid getting our feet wet. The two most difficult crossings were Newton Creek and White River, followed by Eliot. Newton Creek was fast and silty, but there was a large tree across with branches still attached. The branches wanted to hold on to me as I crossed, but it was workable. White River is best to just wade across. The rocks were just too far and too high for my little legs, but more doable for others. Eliot crossing itself was simple, but the climb down on the ropes was dicier. The way to the ropes going CW is not well marked. There is the smallest, most easily missed cairn to the right showing where they are. We met hikers who missed it and somehow climbed down another way, and did not recommend it. 

Snow: There were about 7 snowfield crossings on Day 3 through the wide exposed section above treeline. Half were small, half were longer, but all had clear bootpaths and were easy if done slowly. One involved going quite close to a boulder, and the snow near the boulder was melting out. This is a potential foot-trapping hazard, so I kept my distance. 

Exposure: We did Paradise Park on Day 1 during very cloudy, cold weather. It was windy but stunning. There's a beautiful campsite up by a split boulder, but it was far too windy to camp there safely. If I go back in better weather, I would camp there. On Days 3 and 4, the weather heated up quite a bit, and we encountered significant patches with little to no trees. The very last climb on Day 4, uphill through sand, was in 90 degrees and was quite miserable. I recommend timing the most exposed sections for first thing in the morning, and for this reason recommend going CCW. 

Blowdowns: There were quite a few in various parts of the trail, especially the burned sections. We heard from others that the traditional trail past Ramona Falls was quite slow still due to blowdowns, so we opted for the PCT alternate. It was quite a climb but doable.

Bugs/Flowers/Berries: There were some mosquitos at Elk Cove, but the rest of the trip we avoided most of them. There were also some flies at Elk Cove and other bits, and I personally found them far more annoying. They bit as I hiked! Berries, however, were everywhere and just ripening, and the flowers were still absolutely epic. 

We ran/hiked Timberline on Saturday, August 2nd, starting at 6am and finishing at 8:30pm. We started at the Timberline Lodge Overflow Lot and went CCW. The trail was in pristine shape! The water crossings were all very manageable and it wasn't too difficult to keep your feet dry. Additionally, spring water was available every 3-5 miles. We used water flask cap filters, which made it easy to get water and keep moving. The bugs were somewhat bad in sections but were fine if wearing bug spray. 

Running this route CCW allows you to get some of the bigger water crossings and more exposed sections done before the heat of the day. You are left with two big climbs at the end going this direction but they were manageable. We opted to do the go around on PCT 2000 in order to avoid the section of Timberline with a lot of blow downs. We met a fellow runner who did this section and it added time so we were happy with that choice. 

We ran at a chill pace, hiking all the ups and jogging the downs and flats. We stopped a lot to take in all the beauty. The wildflowers were absolutely stunning! I thought we may be a little too late for them and it was a pleasant surprise. We clocked in a moving time of around 11-12 hours and an elapsed time of 14.5 hours. This is still a very hard route to do in one day despite the trail being very smooth and non-technical. I'd do it again though but I'd also consider meeting folks and setting up camp at one of the campsites that are close to a trailhead/road and splitting it into two days. This would allow you to still run with a vest but have folks bring in a tent/sleeping bag. 

Gear that was extra helpful: poles for water crossings, bug spray, gaiters for sand, change of socks, quick water filter option like BeFree cap, downloaded map, and glucose and salt tabs. I carried 3 flasks with 60oz capacity total, probably would have been fine with 2 flasks. I ran in Topo trail running shoes - it really wasn't technical. I had 2500 calories packed and ate about 1800. 

I am 43, and I hiked the Timberline Trail clockwise from Timberline Lodge from Thursday afternoon (July 31, 2025) to Sunday morning with a sub 10lb. base weight.

I opted to take the trail up to Paradise Park, and it was very worth it!

I camped the first night near Ramona Falls, and it was a little crowded.  I camped under a tarp shelter, and the bugs were not an issue

I opted to take the PCT around the Yocum Ridge area because of reports of blow-downs.  It was obstacle-free hiking, however it was a loooong climb back up to the Trail 600.

I elected to take the trail down to Eden Park, and it was just so-so.  Next time, I would take the trail up to McNeil Point or Dollar Lake instead.

All the stream-crossings were manageable without getting wet.  The only one that was kind of hairy was this one called Branch Creek.  You probably want to find an overgrown and hidden path up the creek a ways to a log crossing.  That's what I did, and it worked fine, but it is intimidating.

I pushed through all the way to Cloud Cap to camp the 2nd night.  It was a 17 mile day, and it is a little bit of a push up that last bit to CCap.  I didn't bother to set up my tarp at all that night or the night after, and I slept peacefully out under the trees and starry sky.

I went down to the Tilly Jane cabin in the morning, and was fortunate to be there at the same time as and to be shown inside by The Friends of Tilly Jane volunteers.

I took Trail 600A from TJ up the east side towards the shelter, and this trail was a bit of a slog, but pretty.  I skipped the shelter because it was crowded, and I've been there before.  It's worth checking out if you haven't though.

I read trip reports that said there was no water on the east side from Cloud Cap to Newton Creek, however I did not find this to be the case.  Wherever there was a snow-field there was a little stream of water coming off it.  You might have to be diligent about how you collect from the tiny shallow streams, like with a flexible cup, but it is water.  There are at least 4 water sources that I counted.  I wish I had this info before, because I would not have hiked with so much water.

The zone right after the snow-fields has some of the best specimens of lupine.

Plan to spend some time at the top of Gnarl Ridge.  This is one of my favorite views on the whole trail.

I camped that night in the Mt Hood Meadows area, and finished the next morning, back at the Lodge in time for the All-you-can-eat-breakfast-buffet.

Some treats of this hike were the abundance of wildflowers, California Tortoiseshell Butterflies, and puffy white clouds on the last day.  Thank you for reading.  Please let me know in the comments if I can help you with any more information.

Happy Trails!