Elk Cove to Dollar Lake, Oct 8th

I was looking at a map with the different trails I’ve done and noticed that I’d gone a couple of times to Dollar lake but always from the east side, either from Vista Ridge or Pinnacle Ridge but never from the Elk Cove trail. That seemed reason enough to post it and go check it out. The trail originally started from road 650, but since the bridge is impassable, you have to park along road 2840 and hike a short portion of the 650 road to the original trailhead. Even though you start with that, the views are not disappointing as you get some views of the Pinnacle Creek drainage to the north. Then, when you find a cairn and make a turn, you get into the forest and start gaining elevation. By then you are already on the ridge with some pretty impressive views. Part of it is because most of this area was burned several years ago. Pretty soon you get your Mt Hood fix right in front of you. The trail just follows the ridge so the views are non-stopping. There’s a section of the trail where there’s a small rocky butte you come to where the trail makes a slight right turn. You know when you’re there because the rocks call you to get on top and enjoy the view. If you don’t go farther than here, you have gotten the eye candy for the day.

After that point, the trail descends a bit and continues on the ridge towards the Timberline trail. In this section you get more in the forest and some of the views disappear for a bit as you enter Elk Cove. Once you reach the unction with the Timberline trail, the views become completely different to the point that it seems you are in a different hike altogether. For starters, Mt Hood is not there and you are surrounded by a small valley with some interesting rock walls and ridges. You can almost see why this place is called Elk Cove, if you were an Elk, that’s where you’d be… As you travel south (counterclockwise) on the Timberline trail you meander a bit thru this valley before a shallow climb to a saddle where, if you look back, you get your Mt Hood view again. After the saddle the views again change as you are looking at the Pinnacle drainage. From that point on, you have to pay attention to the trail and look for the small cairns on both sides that indicate where the trail to Dollar Lake is. Yes, it looks like a user trail but that’s the way up to the lake. As with most things this year, we fund the lake pretty low but very round as always. We stopped there for lunch and while enjoying a bit of refreshing time, I walked around the lake to a small ridge on the east side where I found a couple of campsites and what looked like a rock oven. I guess is there because the views of the mountain are again pretty outstanding. Then, after our lunch break, we retraced our steps back to the cars.
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