Snowshoeing at Barlow Ridge, Feb 14th

Finally I got this book and new map with a ton of winter trails that I didn’t know about so I decided to try one of them. We started from the Barlow Pass Sno-Park in Mt Hood and instead of continuing on the road (which most people seem to do) we took the Mineral Jane trail. This trail starts with a nice descend to a small valley south of the highway with numerous trails going to several peaks around the area. After a bit over an hour, we got to a T shaped intersection with the Barlow Ridge trail. This trail follows the Barlow Butte hill on the Eastside with beautiful views of the White River Basin. As you’ll see in the pictures, this is a service road, luckily for us, there was about a foot of new snow which made this hike so much better. The Barlow Ridge trail actually goes all the way around the butte so at some point, we decided to veer of trail and try a bit of backcountry. Knowing where the ridge was supposed to be, we headed that way for a while and then turn back to meet, at some point, back with the road. This portion of the hike was probably the best one. Fresh deep powder and no tracks at all. It was simply fantastic. After getting back on the road, we hiked back to Mineral Jane and then up to the parking lot. Along that way I saw a couple of trails that look very promising so don’t e surprised if I post another Snowshoe in the area.

Snowshoeing at Yellow Jacket, Feb 7th

This is one of the classic more advanced snowshoe trails in Mount Hood. You may recall I did this same trail last year. As the other time, we had a fantastic day full of sun and warm weather. Contrary to last time though, we didn’t have as much snow. This winter we had a huge storm in December but after that, almost nothing. Most of the trail was very compacted snow to the point that snowshoes were almost unnecessary. Trail and views were as beautiful as expected so we hiked up to the same spot we did last year to have lunch with a beautiful view of Mount Hood. Right after lunch, we spent some time sliding down the hill before heading back. Being blessed with a very warm day, snow became really slushy on the way back but it was still very nice.

Backpacking at Ecola State Park, Jan 31st

Without many plans and a good weather forecast for the weekend, we decided to do a backpacking trip to Ecola State Park. Maybe it wasn’t a true backpacking trip as the hike to the campsite was not that long and we didn’t get to use our tents. But, if sleeping in the woods counts, then yes, this was a backpacking trip. Ecola State park is a portion of land in the Oregon Coast that goes from Cannon Beach all the way north almost to Astoria. This park has a day use area very close to the entrance but there’s also a secondary parking lot at Indian Point where a trail leads north. About a mile and a half in, on a somewhat steep trail, you get to a camping site (which is why we decided to go to Ecola in the first place). This site has three wood shelters with bunk style beds so each shelter can sleep up to four people each. There’s also a fire ring with grill and a covered picnic table. Yes, very rough camping. We got there at around 10AM and started our hike to the campsite which took us a bit less than two hours. After setting up camp and having a light lunch, we continued, without the heavy packs, heading north. Although we were a bit disappointed by this trail, it was a beautiful hike with some nice views of the ocean. The disappointment was because we though we were going to have beach access at some point but that never happened. Even at the end of the trail, we got to a parking lot with some condominiums and no beach access! We returned back to the campsite just in time to go to the viewpoint and enjoy a pretty amazing sunset. This was accompanied by a lot of laughter and some wine which continued into the night. On Sunday we had a nice breakfast and a warm up fire before heading out. Instead of taking the back trail (or road I should say) we took a trail that follows the coast back to the parking lot. Since we got back to the cars roughly at noon, we went for a walk on the beach before heading out. On the way home, just to end the weekend on the right note, we drove to Garibaldi for some nice Fish&Chip. And all this in the middle of the winter!

Snowshoeing at Twin Lakes, Jan 09

I’ll start this log with a complaint, are we going to get any snow this year?? Last year there was so much snow that some trails were close way into the summer due to deep snow. This year in contrast, there’s almost no snow. Anyway, the idea for the day was to do the Twin lakes loop in Mount Hood which I did back in February of 08. I remember that trip being really beautiful with wonderful snow. This time around, the little snow was condensed and packed enough that snowshoes where not needed. Still it was a great group of people with some newcomers to snowshoeing and a great day in the mountain.