The last adventure of 2007! The original pan for this trip was to go to Tom, Dick and Harry up in Mount Hood where Mirror Lake is. The idea was to get to the lake, find good spots and dig some snow caves where we would spend the night. Unluckily weather was not cooperating and as the day got closer, it got much worse. From a simple winter advisory we went to heavy snow advisory. Also the wind was picking up which raised the avalanche risk to high. All this would have made it really difficult not only on the trail but also just to get there and to get out the following day. Obviously there was also the risk of being buried in snow so we had to cancel the trip. Being good adventurers as we all are, we still decided to meet at the original meeting place and decide for something different. Since there where no plans at all, everybody showed up with all the backpacking gear. We were lucky that Lisa was there. She is a member of the Trails Club of Oregon, a club dedicated to hiking with many years of existence. She told us that the club had a lodge up in the Columbia River Gorge near Multnomah Falls. Since her family was going to spend new years there and she had keys to the lodge, we decided to head there and spend the night. The trail starts at Multnomah Falls, so the first part is paved all the way up to the first view point where you get a nice view of the river and the waterfalls. From there we continued on the trail to Larch Mountain and at some point veer of the trail and take the toothbrush trail. After about 4 and half miles (from Multnomah) we reached the lodge. None of us, with the exception of Lisa, could imagine where we would get to. The Lodge has three building, one of them, the main one, serves as kitchen and get together place. It has a big fireplace and an amazing wood burning oven that keeps the whole place warm. The club keeps this fully equipped with food and essential. There are two other buildings with bedrooms, one for males and another with females on the lower floor and coed on the second. It’s hard to tell how nice was to get to this place, start a fire and make hot chocolate. In the lodge area there’s also a view point with and incredible view of the east side of the Gorge. Originally we thought about doing a short hike from the lodge in the afternoon, but after getting the fire going, that didn’t happen. Besides that, Glen and Linda (Lisa’s parents) arrived about a half hour after we did and Linda made an exquisite soup for all of us. After that, we spent the rest of the evening playing cards. The following day, after a nice cup of coffee and pancakes, we got on our way back. To make it more interesting, instead of taking the same route down, we went up to Franklin Ridge and from there crossed to the Wahkeena Falls trail which takes you back down at about half a mile from Multnomah. This trail ended up being very nice with a lot of new and deep snow which gave us the opportunity of some good snow fights. The weekend in general was fantastic and the weather, even though was not cooperating much, gave us a little bit of rain, snow, wind and hail! It would have been difficult to end the year in a better way.
