TLDR; circumnavigated Mount Hood along the Timberline Trail in about 31 hours. Crowded trail, bad smoke, plenty of blowdowns, annoying flies and semi treacherous water crossings. Still fun though.
Overall stats:
Nights on trail: 1
Distance: 41.36
Elevation up: 9,876 ft.
Day 0
We left King County around 3:$5pm on Friday 8/18/23. As expected, traffic was absolutely horrendous. We stopped for food in Vancouver, WA and arrived near Timberline Lodge around 8:30pm. We slept not far away.
Day 1
Distance: 27.24 miles
Elevation up: 6,083
Moving time: 10:34
We woke up at 4:30 and were walking by 5:15, when it was just light enough to hike without a headlamp. We headed clockwise from Timberline Lodge and filled-out the self issue permits about a mile away from the parking lot.
The morning was cool and the sky was blue. We came across numerous PCT thru and section hikers, plus more trail runners and day hikers than I could possibly recount. The trail through this section is well maintained and easy to walk on all the way to Ramona Falls, where we enjoyed a mid morning snack (10 miles by 10am calls for shoes off and leftover Taco Bell).
If you visit Ramona Falls, please be mindful to not step on or sleep on the vegetation. There are signs and barriers in place for a reason.
The stretch from Ramona Falls to McNeil Point is a bit hairy. There are many blowdowns, and although the bulk of them have been cleared, we still must've navigated through at least 50 of them this day. The trail also gets away from fun geographic features and points towards a monotonous climb, so be forewarned.
The entire northern side of the mountain is very crowded with day hikers and backpackers a like. Fireweed, lupine and paintbrush are abundant here, as are views of Wy'East. Unfortunately, smoke began to roll-in in the afternoon, and views were limited for us. Elk Cove had more of the same, plus numerous campsites.
We crossed several rivers this day. Most of them we could successfully rock hop, but on multiple occasions we got our feet wet. We camped at Cloud Cap around 8:30pm.
Day 2
Distance: 14.12 miles
Elevation up: 3,793
Moving time: 5:35
We slept with masks on most of the night to mitigate any harm from the dreadful air quality. We woke up at 5:30 and began to climb on our way back to the parking lot. Views on the northeast side of Hood are normally spectacular, but we were unable to see any other mountains in the distance through the smoke.
The east side of Wy'East has a ton of beautiful meadows with abundant wildflowers as well as water features throughout. We enjoyed a quick snack at Newton Creek and pushed all the way back to the car. Once back at the parking lot, around 12:30pm, we visited the Timberline Lodge buffet to celebrate our safe hike.
I highly recommend this hike for anyone who likes longer days in the mountains and doesn't mind some rough tread and creek crossings. Also, flies were a nuisance.
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