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!
Comments