Another hike off my list! I read about this hike probably four or five years ago and put it on my to-do list. The reason was the promise of spectacular views (which the hike did provide). The abstinence if you will, was due to the trailhead. As far as I known, this hike has changed trailhead three ties now. I’m not sure why the first change happened but I think it was a similar case as the most resent one. It was being used for target practice. As you can imagine, it’s not very comforting driving in the middle of the forest to get to the end of the road where you can find graffiti painted over the rocks, hundreds of bullet casings of all calibers and holes in every surface you can see. Yes, it’s not the place where you want to leave your car, unattended, for a full day. Naturally I was resisting. But then I read an article a couple of month ago indicating the Forest Service was closing the access road to the trailhead. I learned afterwards of another trail, the Douglas trail that could be used to access the McIntyre Ridge trail from the south. Promising a more peaceful destination, I decided to plan a hike and finally explore the area. I’ll say that, if this trailhead is much better than the older, I don’t even want to imagine the old one. I’m not sure if there’s still a lot of target practice in the area as the day we went, there was a huge group from the search and rescue team doing some training in the area. Still. The area around the parking area and the approaching road to the Douglas Trail (now decomitioned) was covered in debris and bullet casings. Either way we felt safe having a few dozen rescuers and policemen near the trailhead. The good thing though is that once you get on the Douglas trail, you leave all this behind pretty quickly and the views of the Eagle Creek Canyon become the main attraction. The climb is not too hard and soon you get to the fork with the end of the McIntyre Ridge trail. Form here there are a couple of options, left and right. We went left first towards the famous McIntyre viewpoint on the ridge. Part of the hike is forested but some other parts, along the ridge, are more open. An unexpected sight was finding wildflowers in full bloom and the tallest beargrass I’ve seen so far. As we walked thru the beargrass meadows it was impossible not to come out covered in pollen – certainly not a hike for someone with allergies.
We passed several of those meadows until we reached the viewpoint. Yes, the views are as good as you’d expect. There’s a couple of trees that have gotten pretty tall and will obstruct part of the view but it’s still amazing. We took a small break in that area before we continued on heading downhill towards the lower viewpoint. That one is not as impressive as the first one, but considering that now the hike is done in reverse, it makes sense. We had a light lunch at that spot before retracing our steps back to the junction where we took the second option to go check out Wildcat Mountain (and to get some more mileage and elevation gain). Doing this after covering the McIntyre Ridge didn’t seem as interesting. Still it’s a worthy destination, if for nothing else, for the extra elevation.
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