Boy Scout Ridge, Jan 10th

Although some hikes can turn really bad when you get disoriented and end up in the wrong place, in this case, getting semi-lost was actually a good thing. Boy Scout ridge is actually a big section just west of the White River Basin in Mount Hood, and the area is known for some trails that go up the ridge and a view point with vistas of the basin towards the south. Geographically speaking, this ridge goes all the way up to Timberline, so you could, in theory, hike down from there. We started from the lower end which happens to be right next to White River. Unfortunately, and this is where we got disoriented, there was no sign for a cut off to the actual Boy Scout Trail, so we just followed the river upstream. After about 45 minutes or an hour, we knew we had overshot the connector trail, so we decided to continue up and see if we could get to the Timberline Trail and access Boy Scout from there. What we were not expecting though, was to find a huge hill up to the ridge with a very steep incline. Originally this hike was supposed to be moderate, but doing the hill was a bit over that rating. Fortunately everyone in the group felt comfortable attempting the climb so we continued up on the side that looked to be the easiest. After a short huff and puff, we got to the ridge and a magnificent view of Mt Hood, the White River Valley and the mountain range towards the south. Since we had a bit of sun, we decided to stop for a quick bite before continuing our hike. From that point on, we figured that we would be navigating back country back to the ridge and hopefully to the view point, so with map and compass at hand, we established a heading and continued. That idea took us thru some dense forest and the creek on the West side of Boy Scout Ridge which we followed for a while until we found a nice spot to stop for lunch. At that point, one of the members started feeling a bit uneasy about being in the backcountry and not having a clear idea where we were heading. That actually became quite the discussion so we had to alter the plan and make a new heading back to the parking lot which we reached in about an hour. I guess we were not that lost after all.