I believe I’ve done this hike a couple of times in the past. The first time, if memory serves me well, we got to the junction with the unofficial path to the viewpoint but didn’t go there. Then, back in December of 2014 we hiked up there with our fried Erin on a very cloudy, misty day – it was December after all. We did get all the way to the view point but with all the clouds and rain, we didn’t get many views. Not saying it was not a spectacular hike that time though. Watching the clouds as the crawl up the mountain side over the trees is always a nice site. From the viewpoint, things were a bit different as there was only a grey void. It looked like this.
This time, Val and I did the hike on a warm, sunny day without a single cloud on the sky. I didn’t take a lot of pictures because most of the hike is very forested and steep so you’re huffing and puffing your way up the mountain. There are only a couple of spots where you can see the Columbia River and Mt Adams on the other side. Then we took the trail that goes to the view point and started getting hints of the reward we would get. I remember a section where the trail descends on a saddle to go over a second know before descending a bit to the viewpoint. Back in December of 2014, with the clouds, the knob looked like a mysterious island in the sky. This time the view might not have been as magical but still cool.
Then we hiked down on a very narrow user path to the very end of the ridge where a very stop drop off would make very bad news. The difference is that this time we finally, finally! Got the spectacular views and the reward for the almost 3500’ of elevation gain. Yes, the hike is long and has a lot of elevation gain but oh man is it worth it.
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