Nature doesn’t care about numbers and yet a simple thing like 2103ft can make one mountain a national symbol and another a little known side note. Last week, despite the ubiquitous clouds, the meadows at Paradise were jam packed with people but it was jam packed with flowers too! The bloom this summer has been amazing and with sunny skies in the forecast this weekend we went looking for an encore. It just seemed logical that we could find what we were looking for on Mt. Adams.
We had a hard time finding info about possible destinations; it appears that beyond the South Spur, Mt Adams is virtually ignored. The first thing that piqued our interest was the Adams Glacier – a ‘sexy’ looking icefall on the north side of the mountain. There was some debate over which approach to take – Divide Camp or Killen Creek – in the end we compromised and did both with the PCT and road biking completing the loop. It turned out to be a good choice as those seven miles packed in more purple than you would find in Prince’s mansion. Flowers were varied but the lupines dominated the entire route like the famed Viking’s defense of the 70s. Time constraints kept us from exploring the side trail up to High Camp but what we saw in this little day hike we will definitely return for a multi-day adventure in the future.
From the free forest service campground at Killen Creek we drove to Bird Creek Meadows on the Southeast side of Mt Adams. The road is rough but passable by regular cars (although it seems endless when your baby – unable to suck her thumb - protests the entire way). You need special permits to hike here but you need not have ‘reservations’ about this trail as the Yakima Nation does a great job managing the area. We were greeted near the parking area by a uniformed Yakima ranger where we filled out our permit and paid the $5 fee. He was very friendly and went out of his way to show us the map of the area. With this nifty map in hand we mulled over several options before deciding on a small loop that followed Bird Creek and a ridge with sweeping views of Mt. Adams. The flowers here were excellent, earning high marks for consistency, variety and range of colour. Oddly enough there were several picnic tables available, we didn’t pack a lunch but we were happy to sit in the shade and soak up the views of Mt. Hood where we would continue our volcano tour the next day.
For our first ever hike on Mt. Hood we started at the Timberline Lodge and hiked the PCT to Paradise Park. The experience was very different from our previous hikes as the meadows here are much drier and shade is hard to find on a hot summer day. We had brought along an umbrella to keep Kasey out of the sun but this meant hiking without the benefit of trekking poles. This made the hike a lot tougher as the trail dips in & out of a series of gullies until climaxing with 800ft deep Zigzag Canyon. Once past this chasm however the effort starts to pay off as the next series of gullies are filled with bright beautiful flowers. Though not as consistent as the meadows on our previous hikes these little streams packed the biggest photogenic punch. At last ups & downs finally gave way to the vast expanse of Paradise Park and we were rewarded to sprawling views of Mt Hood, Mt St Helens & Mt Jefferson.
We still had a long drive back to Canada but since we were returning home on a Tuesday we decided to make a little detour to Mt. Rainier National Park as well. Despite many visits to the park we still hadn’t seen ‘the mountain’ from Paradise and for once that was going to be a guarantee. What we didn’t expect to see was such a change to the meadow since it had been just eight days since our last visit. No longer were lupines the dominant flowers, however the blooming of several other species masked their decline. We topped off the day by doing the Burroughs Mountain loop again – our personal favourite in the park. Along the way we ran into a couple lugging their 10-month-old baby girl. We love volcanoes and we love our little girl – combining the two just seems logical.
For those of you who like numbers:
5 meadows over
4 days at
3 different volcanoes by
2 thoroughly exhausted parents and
1 well traveled baby.
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