Silver Star via Ed’s Trail, Sep 20th

The hike to Silver Star from Ed’s trail is one of those you have to do at some point. Not only it will give a good taste of what climbing to a summit feels like but it will also give you some amazing panoramic views of the volcanoes around you. The hike starts pretty high up after a long drive on “Pothole” road. That makes the elevation gain not so difficult for the rewards you get. The hike starts in a semi forested area with low underbrush until it reaches an old forest road. From that point, there are a couple of options to continue up. One is following the ridge which is very nice but usually windy and the other, following Ed’s trail which stays on the north side right bellow the ridge and overlooking the Star Creek. After some huffing and puffing, we got to the ridge that offers the first views to the north and also great opportunities for group photos

The hiking party


From the ridge, we descended a bit a followed our path right under the ridge rock formations all the way to the Arch and the cave on the other side. We did a second stop there just to try to get everybody in the cave which we did. From there, we continued to what probably is the hardest part of this hike. The trail makes a couple of switchbacks on loose rocks and wet terrain that forces you to grab on to branches and roots to pass it, just to find yourself in front of a short wall that you have to scramble up. This comes with a nice reward as you get to a flat rock with incredible views to the valley of the Star Creek and beyond.

Star Creek with Adams in the background


Shortly after passing the scramble section, we passed a forested section of the mountain before getting back to the old forest road. From there, we followed the road all the way to the summit where we found a group of bird watchers and other hikers enjoying the beautiful views. As we did a long time ago when I did this exact same hike, we went to the false summit which is a bit lower that the real summit but offers equally inspiring views to have lunch. Being a nice, warm weather day, instead of heading back down to the trailhead, we decided to extend the hike by going to the Indian pits. The first portion was a very steep downhill that took us thru some heavy underbrush before getting to an open meadow. From there it’s just an easy walk to the pits where we explored a bit, sat in the pits and fooled around before heading back

Erin on her vision quest inside a pit


For the return we did the exact same trail with the exception of the ridge. Instead of taking the lower trail, we followed the ridge back to the trail head. That gave us some really nice afternoon views with lots of falls colors.