This is the classic example on how much a trail can change… well, not the actual trail but the access road changing the hike entirely. In Mt Hood there are several trails that can be joined to form a loop. Some of those require hiking on a road for a bit to connect them. About three years ago I did this loop clockwise and learned the route I tried this time. On that occasion, we drove on Forest road 380 to the Cast Creek trailhead, did the entire loop and then, once we got back to road 380, we hiked back the little over a mile distance to the parked cars. This time I wanted to revisit that hike as I remembered the views and the hike itself being fantastic. I also wanted to do it in reverse, starting from Horseshoe Ridge and coming back on Cast Creek so we would do the road first. So we drove there and the first surprise we got was that road 380 has been decommissioned. We were not even able to get to the Cast Creek trailhead (the one I remembered). Without knowing anything else, I assumed there was only a big road block and that if we just went over it, we would find the road on the other side. Well we did, but the road was destroyed. Not only they had gone in with heavy machinery and dug big holes so not even a big foot truck could pass but they took all the bridges and even pulled some trees in the middle. The whole thing ended up being a 2 miles, hardcore bushwhack. Luckily we did this first as I could not imagine how it would have gone if we had to do it after completing the loop. In any case, on those two miles we had to descend and climb back out of three creeks, go over boulders, trees and branches. Eventually we made it to the old Horseshoe Ridge trailhead. From there I saw what originally was a second option to access this route from Riley camp. I guess now is the only way to do it. We stopped for just a minute to get our breaths and then started hiking up on a real trail. For a while the hike was in dense forest without a lot of views, but eventually it comes out to a wonderful open meadow that overlooks Lolo Pass road. On good days you can see Adams and Helens from there but not Hood behind you. A bit more climbing finally took us to the Zigzag trail and the view I was hoping for. Hiking in this area is just extraordinary. We followed the Zigzag ridge and made a stop for lunch at one of the prominent points with front row view of Mt Hood. From there we connected with the Burnt Lake trail and then Cast Creek to hike back down on another section of the dense forest. So now we know, with forest road 380 gone, this loop is now longer.
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