Another adventurous escape on the Timberline Trail
We thought we were in the clear, that the last mile or two of the 41-mile Timberline Trail that encircles Mt. Hood wouldn’t put up much of a fight. Sure, the crossing of Eliot Creek is notoriously daunting. After four days on the trail, we knew it was still coming. But reports from other hikers passing us in the opposite direction were optimistic.
It’s not bad, they said.
There’s a rope, they said. Even a log bridge.
And they were largely right. Actually crossing the mighty stream that plows its way down from the mountain’s largest glacier of the same name wasn’t that bad. Getting down to it, however, was a slippery, bouldery, precarious trial that had me fretting that our 40-mile streak of safety was about to break.
But it didn’t. All six of us – a cadre of friends who’ve shared years of outdoor adventures together – made it down, albeit slowly, across the creek and back up a steep, long slog to the Cloud Cap Saddle Campground on the northeast side of Hood where we’d left a car four days and 41 miles earlier.
It felt fantastic to be back, but also to have been away. Four days backpacking on the Timberline Trail had been an immersive escape. We saw blue alpine skies and nonstop drizzle. We crossed grassy meadows that double as prime ski terrain in the winter. Fortuitous planning – we’d started on the north side of the mountain rather than the south – found us indoors at the historic Timberline Lodge for the rainy second night, where we refreshed in the mountainside hot tub and pool, ate pizza and dried out. And we picked huckleberries, shared the trail with a stubborn grouse, marveled at the luminescence of Ramona Falls and on and on and on.
We had left behind any troubles and escaped to Mt. Hood, if only for a spell. It’s something that the mountain provides – an escape. A glorious respite from the real world. A chance to truly focus on the present and worry not about work or responsibility, troubles or heartbreak; to contemplate instead just how you’re going to cross that next river or how spiritual it is to come upon a luminescent waterfall in the forest and simply sit down in front of it and wonder.
The Timberline Trail and Mt. Hood are always perfect for that.
Hiking Ramona Falls with the kids
I may have fibbed just a little, telling them the hike to my favorite waterfall on Mount Hood was two easy miles.
But I figured the scenery along the way — the mountain views, the river, a stream or two — and the promise of just how majestic Ramona Falls truly is, would be enough to mask the real effort enough that my kids wouldn’t notice. The hike is actually closer to 3.5 miles one-way. In my defense, however, it’s been long enough since I’ve done it that I didn’t really remember. What I did recall was that the effort was more than worth it.
So we set out up the trail on a Sunday morning, before 11 a.m. because we’d camped at the McNeil Campground the night before. I worried a little about the Sandy River crossing, as not only had the Forest Service not yet installed the bridge for the season, but someone actually got swept away there last summer during a flash flood of sorts. Not one to risk too much, I knew we would turn around if it was at all unsafe.
But when we got to the crossing, a natural bridge, complete with a handrail, greeted us, and so we crossed.
Some mixed messaging on the signage led us to take the somewhat longer leg of the loop, though in retrospect I don’t think it’s all that much longer. It’s about 7 miles roundtrip one way, 6.8 the other. When you’re low on water and trying to convince a 9-year-old and a 5-year-old that the most amazing waterfall is not that much farther, though, it seems like much more.
Even so, when we at last rolled up on the falls, they got it.
The first time I ever hiked to Ramona Falls, my first Mount Hood backpacking trip back in 1998, I remember how incredible the water from the falls tasted. Like the newest snow. Back then, we had a filter with us; this time around, we didn’t. It was a gamble, but we had played up the water to Madeline too much not to indulge; we filled our water bottles straight from the falls. It tasted just as I remembered.
The hike down was longer than the kids would have liked, but I enticed them with ice cream and a return to Trillium Lake to catch newts.
That sealed the deal for them, so the belly aching on the way back down was minimal. And yes, we went back to Trillium to catch even more newts than we’d caught the day before, so to them, it was worth it.
I, personally, was just glad that they got to take in Ramona Falls. It truly is an incredible sight to see. Two years ago, when I passed it on the Timberline Trail with a few writer friends, one of them, John Morrison, had described it as luminescent. Exactly.
And when, a few days later, Madeline took a drink from her water bottle on the way to her horse riding lesson and said she could still taste Ramona Falls, I knew our hike had made its mark.
On MOUNT HOOD 