Hunchback Mountain, April 4th

Another newly discovered trail. This trail is so close to the city that it’s often overlooked. Not only that, getting there and parking couldn’t be easier. The Hunchback Mountain is just south of the 26 Hwy in Zigzag. To get there you only need to drive to the Ranger station, park there and that’s it. What we discovered though, was an incredibly beautiful trail with amazing views of the Salmon River Valley and Mt Hood. Of course, to get to these views, you have to climb, really climb. The trail is a very steep uphill in a dense second growth forest all the way to the first view point where you reach the ridge that opens a wide view of the Salmon River valley. If for nothing more, reaching this point is worth the hike. From that point on, the trail continues on the ridge, so at all times you have the valley on one side and Mt Hood on the other. The tall trees are the only thing in the way to actually seeing Mt Hood. After another hard climb, we got a big pile of rocks from where you can get sweeping views of Mt Hood on the front and the valley behind you. Although this would seem to be the highest point on the trail, it is not but it makes a good turning point. We, being all adventurers, decided to keep going. The idea was to reach a point know as the Great Pyramid which we where never able to get to, most probable because we could not see the trail. After hiking and bushwhacking for a while, we decided to stop at a sunny spot to have lunch before heading back down. Most of the time, the hike down is uneventful as you get pretty much the same views you got on the way up, the only difference is where the sun is. What was different, and incredibly beautiful this time was that it was a very warm day after a really cold night with some snow showers. All the trees that were white on the way up due to the accumulated snow started melting. Even though it was a sunny day, it was raining in the forest and the trees were turning green in front of our eyes. You can even see the difference in the pictures where everything is white on the way up and there’s almost no snow on the way down (especially in the view point). I guess we got lucky and got two hikes for the price of one.