Palisades, Little Ranger Peak via Ranger Creek — Wednesday, Jun. 2, 2021

It’s official: the Palisades Loop is clear of snow and eminently doable! Our route today started at Camp Sheppard (great parking and a decent outhouse), where we caught the White River trail to the Little Ranger Peak trail. Once on LRP trail, we hiked to the junction with the Palisades trail. Here, we hung a left and followed the Palisades trail back down to the White River trail, which took us back to Camp Sheppard. I’d say we did about 15 miles RT—mileage varies between trail signs and Green Trails map. No snow (well, a smidge, but hardly worth mentioning; literally about ten feet long total, all on the Palisades trail, and zero problem). There were several blowdowns, but all easily stepped over. The most challenging aspect of the hike are areas where the grade is steep and the trail slippery, with loose dirt and small rocks. Just take your time and use poles. Specifically, after you leave Little Ranger viewpoint (on your way up to the Palisades junction), you will be going up 15 switchbacks. On switchback 9, it’s pretty steep and slippery. Like, I used my hands. On the Palisades portion of the trail, the area along the waterfall is steep. In my opinion, this is less a slip risk than a knee challenge. There’s a rather long stretch of steep switchbacks, a flight of stairs, and some isolated high steps. Poles and patience will see you through. You’ll gain and lose nearly 3000 feet coming and going. It’s a great workout, though, and beautiful. The landscape is varied, with various wildflowers, Pacific yew trees long Little Ranger, giant old growth Doug fir and cedars at both ends of the hike, and amazing views from Palisades ridge. Wildflowers we saw today included: Deerfoot vanilla leaf, fairy slipper, trillium, pioneer violet, woods strawberry, lavender penstemon, scarlet paintbrush, spreading phlox, and one that I can’t identify from my flower books. I'd include a picture, but it has too many bytes or whatever to fit here. Oh well! Happy hiking, All!