Huckleberry Mountain in the Mt Hood wilderness is one of those very rewarding destinations. I’ve done this hike several times both from Boulder Ridge and once via the Bonanza trail. Either approach is great although this one has easier access and parking as it starts from the Wildwood recreation site of hwy26. The first part of the hike goes thru several switchbacks on a very woodsy forest. There are not many views in that area but if the sky is clear and the sun coming in at an angle, you get that magic yellow glow as light filters thru the trees. We were lucky to have that this day. Then, just when you feel you’re breathing hard, you get to the first view point. If you’re not looking you may miss it as it’s a bit off trail. This view point was put there by nature – there’s a tree and a ledge where you can sit down and just enjoy the views of the Salmon River valley, Zigzag, Zigzag Mountain and Mt hood. If that was not enough, we were lucky enough to be there on one of those occasions that a big lenticular cloud is forming on top of the mountain giving it a very impressive hat. At a point it actually looked like a funnel that you could see from underneath. After a while we continued our climb thru the forest until we got to the ridge. At that point we were on compressed snow and limited views of the mountain behind us. Shortly after that we got to the saddle, our destination. This is not the actual Huckleberry Mountain summit which is a couple hundred yards beyond this point, but this is where the views are. We stopped there for a nice lunch with a fantastic view before retracing our steps back to our cars. Having done this destination from two different trailheads begs the question; can we combine the two and do a long thru hike? Stay tuned, it may happen
Interactive map
To see the full map, click Menu and select Full Screen. You can also click Terrain to change the map style
No comments:
Post a Comment